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tatooedlaura-blog · 5 years ago

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Narrow Beds

Oh, it’s been awhile ... fingers creaked as I began to type ... brain hurt trying to remember words ... I have forgotten how much I love to write over the last few months but I think I will begin again ...

@today-in-fic

&&&&&&&&&

He really should have obeyed more traffic laws getting to the house but he didn’t: thought he saw a cop, began immediately planning alternate route hairpin turns and concocted stories of plunder and raze but in the end, it was just a car with two old ladies and a penchant for drinking their coffee in a parked vehicle as opposed to speeding precariously on the highway.

Regardless, he arrived without incident and knocking on Maggie Scully’s door, fiddled with the keys in his hand until the front door opened up, “Fox. That was quick.”

Desperate to grab her by the arms and ask, in that panicked tone he tried not to let anyone know he had, where Scully was, he instead held himself in check, jamming hands in pockets and rocking on his feet no more than two inches back and forth, “I didn’t catch any red lights.”

Mama Scully half-wondered if he’d driven on the sidewalks part of the way but keeping the traffic lecture to herself, she stepped aside, gesturing towards the steps, “she came in, said ‘I’m fine’ and disappeared upstairs.” Reaching for his elbow, she touched it lightly, “what happened?”

Normally she didn’t ask, knowing their history of diluting the horrors of their day for her benefit, but the look on her daughter’s face when she’d brushed past had her calling Mulder before she heard the bedroom door shut.

He’d been in the car on his way to Scully’s so a detour hadn’t been difficult: two lefts, one right at ‘Oops, I cut it again’ salon and minutes later, he was here.

Fourteen to be exact.

But who was really keeping track.

“We had a bad case. I asked about dinner but she said she just needed a bath and a nap.” Pointing up the stairs to move things along, “she in her old room?”

“Yeah. Thank you, Fox.” Watching his already retreating form, “let me know if you need anything.”

All she got was a wave over his shoulder.

It was enough.

&&&&&&&&&

Having been to her childhood room several times, he knew which door would lead him there instead of the bathroom and knocking lightly, he waited, listening for acceptance or denial of his request.

Instead he got, “I’m fine.”

Opening the door slowly, “you are a big, fat liar.”

She didn’t even flinch at the intrusion that wasn’t her mom, instead simply half-rolling towards him, hands crossed on her stomach, “mom wouldn’t have known that.”

“Your mom is the least dumb person we have ever met. It was your first, ‘I’m fine’ that made her call me and ask what the hell was wrong.”

Instead of denial and irritation at his implication that her world was not all peachy-keen, she stared at him for a long moment, looking from his rumpled t-shirt to his tired eyes, biting her bottom lip in debate and then in resignation at asking for the only thing in the world she wanted at the moment , “are you wearing your shoes?”

Taking the question in stride, “no. I left them downstairs by the door. Why?”

“Because mom doesn’t like shoes on the bed.” Scooting as close to the wall as she could, given she was an adult in a single bed, “would you mind shutting the door and laying down with me, please?”

Shutting as ordered, he maneuvered, with maximum confusion and minimal jostling, to lay behind her on the narrow mattress, “I have forgotten, in my adult years, how much I have grown in relation to my childhood.”

Practically smushed against the wall, she felt an almost-need to try to smile but the mood passed instantly, morose overtaking with lightning speed, “you know, the last person in this bed with me was Melissa; a few weeks before she left for college.”

Not sure where to put his arm, he held it awkwardly against his side, wondering with every passing moment if taking a deep breath would send himself crashing to the floor, “she was decidedly less …” wiggling slightly, his jeans twisted around his knees, “hulking than me.”

The only thing keeping her nose from pressing against the wall was her hand, “she was definitely smaller than you, I won’t argue.”

He’d shared a bed with her before, well, not so much a bed as a quiet corner in some snowed-in airport outside Fargo but whatever.

At least this time, he had the option of covers if necessary.

If only half his body wasn’t hanging off the side of the mattress.

He gave up.

“I’m coming closer.”

For one bless-ed moment, she forgot her churning black cloud in favor of wonderment, “Is that even possible?”

“Hopefully.” Sliding eight millimeters at best, he was now pressed solidly against her from upper chest to ankle, “much better.”

And for some reason, it was the extra warmth, the simultaneous heartbeats, the overwhelming air of another’s existence so close to hers, that made her crumble.

He heard the walls fall, crashing in voided silence and arm be damned, he moved it from himself to her, hand slipping beneath her elbow to rest on her belly, mouth moving as close to her neck as his nose would allow, “it wasn’t our fault.”

“It’s always our fault, Mulder. Every time we go out the door, it’s our fault.”

Moving enough so it was his forehead resting against the back of her head and not his nose, he found himself staring down at the minor flaw in her otherwise perfect neck, “we didn’t know. I didn’t know and you sure as hell didn’t know.”

“Nobody knows anything ahead of time, Mulder but if I had just waited a quarter of a second, a blink of a fucking eye, I would have noticed him. At the academy, the first thing they tell you about handling a gun is always know what’s behind your target. You look behind the damned target before you shoot.”

“No one, not even … shit, not even Superman and his super peepers … would have noticed Jamison under that table. It was pitch black down there. We were doing our job. We did our job and now it’s done and we’re home and jammed into this bed and it wasn’t your fault.” Emphasizing his point, he, for a brief moment, tightened his arm, sinking into cotton-covered stomach, “it wasn’t your fault.” He felt her muscles tighten, knowing full well she was trying to sit up, turn to him, argue his reasoning and he stopped her, quietly, his words drifting over her shoulder, “if you make me fall off this bed with all your arm flailing and point making, I am taking you with me which will just bring your mom up here and then you’ll get in trouble for having a boy in your bed.”

Tensed but debating, she settled back down, logic winning for the shortest possible moment, movement stilled but voice quavering, “I shot and killed a man. Somebody’s husband, Mulder, somebody’s son, somebody’s father. How do I justify that with a simply phrase of ‘it wasn’t my fault’?” Cracking words, her breath hitched violently, chest jumping, abdomen contracting with the effort of not wailing at the top of her lungs, “it was my fault, Mulder. He was hiding under a table. He’d managed to free himself and in trying to escape, heard the raid, crawled under a table and for all his efforts, he died anyway.”

Her last words trailed in a sob and Mulder, ignoring wedged-in bed etiquette, sat up as best he could, wiggled his arm under her neck and finally holding her from both sides, hugged her, kissing each bump of her spine from hairline to neckline, knowing it was time for him to be quiet, to listen, to ache for her.

And when it was time to hold the edge of the mattress as she tried to move closer. Needing any and all leverage he could get to stay on the bed, he simultaneously vee’d his knees, pushing hers forward as well, accidentally-on-purpose spooning to the best of his ability.

She didn’t argue, burrowing into her cocoon of Mulder-heat, vaguely wondering, as the tears flowed out of her and consequently onto him, if it would be, while not scientifically likely, metaphorically possible to crawl inside him, live there protected from the world, for the next few seconds to several hundred years of their combined life.

Choosing to focus on that rather than the harsh reality of now, it still took quite a while for her tears to taper off. Feeling her heart slow its rat-a-tat pace, she whispered into the crook of his elbow, “how do I get through this?”

“Just like we are now. You hold me, I hold you; tomorrow, we do it again.”

It was only now that she began to register how cramped they were, how un-professional they were, how perfect they were, at this very moment and doing a most un-Scully like thing, she let herself sink into the moment, “We should probably find a bigger bed then.”

Hearing just a little of the humor he loved, he chuckled once against her, repositioning his head, deciding both would benefit from a little nap, “I’m not worried about it right now.”

Finding his hand, she ran fingers over crooked knuckles, as close to a handhold as she could manage at the moment, “I wonder if I’ll get grounded if mom finds you here in the morning?”

Already headed to dreamland and taking her with him, “I think we should find out.”

&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Myth: falling asleep.

Fact: waking up.

Confusion: setting in quickly.

Resolution: someone was mumbling beside him.

Follow-through: Once he’d realized he was indeed awake and for some reason in a bed that was seven to eight times too small for two people, he carefully rolled to his side, creating a precious hands-width of space between him and the mumbler.

About to ask if she was alright, he instead, being the terrible person that he was, eavesdropped.

Because … just … because.

And all he heard was a shopping list.

Sleeping next to him and she dreams of chocolate chips and bacon.

He couldn’t help his smile.

Then she hit ‘lube’ and ‘batteries’ and his interest sky-rocketed.

His smile widened.

Oil change and toilet paper should have bought him back to Earth but it didn’t and he listened to her talk another few moments before silence settled again in the time-locked room.

Continuing to stare at her and the dark grey wall behind her instead of going back to sleep, he began thinking in Mulder-type fits and spurts about time and space and awareness and his infinitesimally small space in the universe.

Did the universe still exist outside the room?

Had he been granted his desire to wake beside her only to have the rest of existence forget about them and consequently, forget about existence in the process?

What if Scully’s God had raptured the world and left them behind, alone but together?

Outside the door could be nothing, a vast void of blackness stretching out beyond infinity?

He wasn’t supposed to be here. This was just a rest stop between today and tomorrow. He ought to have been at home on his couch, comfortably hugged by warm leather and soft cotton.

Instead, he was in some weirdly light, hollow, empty, anticipating place.

He could feel the room around him. Everything in it, except him, resting their weary constructs: dust motes, drafts, deliciously warm partners. It unsettled him. This was the snowed in airport at 3am when he had to get up to go to the bathroom and fought it because the empty, dim hallways made his heart beat faster and put him on an edge he didn’t enjoy.

“Scully?”

Another mumble and what he would describe as a weirdly purring throat noise, later, she opened one eye in his direction, “trash bags.”

Another soul awake. Aware. He took a deep breath but continued his whispering, “I’ll add it to the list.”

Finally grasping some sort of faculties, she opened the other eye, brought him into focus as best she could, “why are you in bed with me?”

“You invited me here, remember?”

It took a second to recall but she got there and the smile desperate to cross her lips showed itself at the corners of her mouth but she didn’t let it win, “oh yeah.” Pausing for deep breath, she shut her eyes again, stretching as best she could and very narrowly using him as a full-body pillow in her quest for more sleep, “why did you wake me up?”

“Because I’m an adult freaking out about the dark and infinity and weird spaces where time doesn’t seem to exist and frankly, I’m worried that we are the only two people left in the universe and that we are floating in an utter blackness void even of stars and …”

He stopped because her hand was now covering his mouth, “Mulder … I swear to you. Outside is still outside.”

Talking through her hand, “Then why do I feel so strange? This never happens when I wake up at my own place in the middle of the night.”

Knowing sleep was now officially at least a few minutes away, she removed her hand but kept her eyes shut, thinking that if sleep accidently floated by, she could catch it, “you, my friend, are caught in a ‘liminal space’”

Liminal space. He felt he should remember that from somewhere but his 2am still spiralling mind couldn’t organize, “what?”

“I will be writing this down as the day I knew something you didn’t. Remind me to play the lottery later.”

Smart-ass-ness was starkly evident this later/early in the day but he liked her so he didn’t tell her about the ‘lube’ comment, “this isn’t helpful.”

“Sorry.” Finally looking at him, eyes dilating wide in the dark, “liminal spaces are kind of like waiting areas between one thing and the next. After one point in time and space and before the other.”

He was remembering now, “where magic happens and anything is possible.”

“Or where you begin to doubt universal existence and are afraid of the dark.”

“I am not afraid of the dark.”

She really hadn’t meant it to sound like it did and in apology, she rested a finger in the dimple on his chin, “I know. I just meant … when I was a kid, I’d wake up just like you and wonder if mom and dad were still in their beds. If Missy and Bill and Charlie were going to be at breakfast the next morning or had the darkness snatched them away?”

“But I’m an adult and I know better.”

“No one knows better at 3am or whatever the hell time it is.” Figuring the best way to fix this was to show him and she struggled to sit up, she accepted an assistance shove from her Mulder, “come on. We’re going downstairs.”

Now he was just starting to feel silly and for Mulder to feel silly required quite a bit of silliness, “it’s okay. We should probably just go back to sleep.”

“No.” Taking his hand and tugging until he was standing beside her, thankful for socks against the chilly floor, “I want to show you something.”

Giving in because she was her, he followed, inaudible sigh of relief he would never admit to once the bedroom door was open and he saw that, indeed, the rest of the house still stood. Shuffling across wood floor and creeping down the stairs, avoiding, under Scully’s direction, the creaky seventh step, she took him to the couch, pushing on his chest lightly to get him to sit. Once settled, several afghans piled over their legs, he waited as long as he could before asking, “what are we doing?”

“We are learning to love liminal spaces.”

“We are?”

“Yeah.” Quiet for another moment to gather her explanation, “we are witnessing timelessness. Enjoy it.”

So he sat, hand in hers, until he mused, half to himself, “liminal spaces should be an X-File.”

“No. I’m not letting you file these away. I have fallen in love with them and don’t want them categorized and easily referenced. They are meant to be discovered by accident and left alone when done.”

Sliding somewhat down the cushions to rest his head against the back of the couch, “do these spaces make you feel better?”

Knowing the question behind the question, “this space is making me feel better right now. It was still my fault but I think I’ll have to accept it and move on.” Matching his slide, she went one better and shifted her head to lean on his shoulder, “how are you feeling?”

“Better about the universe and about liminal magic.”

“Liminal magic?”

Turning his head, he first kissed her forehead, then shifted enough to brush his lips against hers, impulsive and unassuming, “that right there was liminal magic.”

With a smile, she let her hand drift to his knee, then his thigh, squeezing before coming to a rest slightly higher than strictly friends defined, “shush.”

“Shushing now.”

&&&&&&&&&

Maggie found them prone on the couch the next morning, smushed together on something even more narrow than the bed they’d occupied earlier. Scully, true to form, using him as a pillow while he held onto her dear life, fearful even in sleep of falling to the ground and leaving her behind.

It was then that she knew her daughter’s answer of ‘I’m fine’ later on would be a genuine one and moving to the kitchen, she decided chocolate chip waffles and bacon would be the order of the day.

#narrow beds #liminal spaces #msr #midnight grocery lists #Maggie Scully #not one drop of alcohol in this one #just couldn't work it in #My writing #xfiles #x-files

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baronessblixen · 7 years ago

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You’re just so good at baby fics I absolutely have to send this prompt to you! I just got done feeding a 7 month old some baby food and boy it was an adventure! My mind immediately went to William trying to feed Baby Girl and both parties are covered in the mush by the end and all Scully and Mulder can do is stand there and laugh at their kiddos and their attempt at lunch

Here it finally is, anon :) Thank you for the prompt. Have some baby fic. It’s all fluff (and mush.)

Tagging @today-in-fic

He assured them hecould do it. He was so certain, too. No problem, he said. None at all. NowJackson realizes he was wrong. Very, very wrong. How difficult could feeding achild be? It looks so easy. He's watched both Dana and Mulder feed his babysister without any fuss. He knows she can throw a tantrum. Oh yes, he knows.But not with him. She likes him. Or so he thought.

"Hey Katie, comeon we-" As he brings the spoon closer to her face, she shakes her tinyhead vigorously and when Jackson doesn't stop, she flings her pudgy arms athim. The spoon clatters to the ground, leaving green blobs. The baby gigglesand stuffs her hand into her mouth.

"That wasn'tnice," Jackson says as he crouches down to pick up the spoon. Katiechooses that moment to take the plate in her hands and throw it at him."Ouch!" The plastic dish hits his temple painfully as the mushy peasland in his hair, on his face and everywhere else. His sister kicks her feet intriumph, claps her messy hands and laughs.

"Why are youdoing this to me?" He says, sighing. Katie grins at him.

"Gah!"

"Yeah. I don'tlike peas either, but they're good for you. You eat them when Mulder feeds themto you." The baby tilts her head and blinks at him. She is cute even whenshe's terrorizing him. He can't deny that Mulder and Dana make cute babies.He's seen pictures of himself at her age and the resemblance is uncanny.Jackson never thought he'd be so lucky to have a baby sister. He'd alwayswanted a sibling. Someone he could confide in, who was on his side no matterwhat. Looking at this tiny human being with a chin like his own, he knows it'stoo late for him. But not for her. He can be that for her.

"Not Mulder, huh?You know him as dad." Jackson looks over his shoulder; he's been here withthem for over a year. Yet he can't imagine calling them anything but Dana andMulder. Not out loud, that is. They refer to him as their son all the time.Whether it's colleagues, friends or strangers, they always introduce him astheir son. Showing him off like their proudest achievement. They do the same withKatie. He hasn't known them that long. Something tells him they haven't alwaysbeen like this, though. They've saved the world, he's sure of it, and yet. It'shim and Katie.

"Can we tryagain?" Jackson asks his sister and she is just quietly glancing at himwith her clear blue eyes. Exactly like Dana's. He picks up a new plate andscoops more mushy peas on it. Katie slaps her hands on the table in front ofher, splattering the green goo. He sighs. "Will you eat it if I do?"

"Gah!" Thatcould mean yes, he figures. He picks up a new spoon and digs into the mush. Hegrimaces. He wasn't lying when he told Katie he hates peas, too. His sisterwatches with her eyes and mouth wide open as he puts the spoon into his ownmouth. The tepid, surprisingly sweet peas remain on his tongue as he strugglesto swallow. Katie doesn't take her eyes off him so he decides to just do it.

"See? Not toobad." He picks up her spoon and offers it to her. Katie looks at it, thenat him. She's calm, quiet. That's a good sign! He smiles at her, hoping toencourage her. The spoon comes closer to her mouth and he's almost there. Assoon as her lips taste the affronting food, she starts spewing and spitting. "Hey,it's all right. It's all right, Katie." Jackson puts the spoon against theplate, green mush dripping lazily onto the table.

"Gno! Bah!"She's kicking about angrily and still spitting even though the peas are longgone. One of her feet connects with his chin as he tries to calm her down. Herslapping hand hits the side of the plate and it goes flying. Jackson's hands goup in the air helplessly as peas rain down on him and Katie. He catches theplate before it lands on Katie's head. He's as winded as if he's just beenrunning a marathon.

"Oh Katie."Jackson sighs, wiping mush off his forehead. He has no idea what he looks likehimself, but Katie resembles a tiny, angry wood creature. She stuffs a fistinto her mouth, obviously hungry. "What are we doing for lunch now? Andthe mess?" They're going to kill him. They'll never trust him with Katieever again. The kitchen looks like a battle field and the peas never stood achance.

"Bah, bah,bah."

"I know you'rehungry. But you were supposed to eat the peas." Carefully, Jackson stepsover a green puddle by his feet. He will have to clean it all up before Danaand Mulder return. How do they do this? Day in and day out. Here he thought hecould help them, do something for them for a change. He screwed up. Of coursehe did. Jackson reaches into the cupboard and takes out the baby porridge. He'sseen Mulder give it to Katie on a few occasions making the baby promise not tomention it to her mother. So Jackson figures he can bribe her with that. Foronce he's glad she can't talk yet; this is going to remain their secret.

"Gaaaah!"Katie lets him know and flings some mushy peas at him. When he turns to her,the porridge done, she's grinning and giggling.

"Very funny,Katie." Her little arms stretch towards him, trying to get to the bowl.Jackson puts some porridge on a spoon and this time she eats hungrily, withoutcomplaint. He sighs in relief.

"Now we justcan't tell mom and dad about this." Jackson says as she opens her mouth widefor another spoon. While she's chewing happily, he hears a snicker, a repressedlaugh. He turns around, his heart beating a beat too fast, and there they are.Dana and Mulder stand in the doorway, holding each other as if that's the onlything saving them from completely losing it – one way or the other.

"I canexplain." He begins, stutters. The two seconds of stunned silence areenough for Mulder to erupt in loud laughter. Dana joins in and Jackson watchesthem in amazement. He's never seen them like this, never heard their carefreelaughter. He looks at Katie, who is still chewing lazily, grinning at theirparents.

"Glah!" Shelets out a happy squeal and lifts her arms up waiting to be picked up.

"Oh baby."Dana says and walks towards them.

"Be careful notto slip." Mulder says, hiccupping with laughter. Jackson wants to warn herthat she'll get peas all over her clothes, but Dana doesn't care. She takesKatie from her chair and the child cuddles against her. Dana gives her a kisson her cheek, must taste the mush. All Jackson wants to do is disappear.

"She didn't makeit easy for you, did she?" Dana smiles at him warmly. She reaches out andhe flinches, but she doesn't stop and brushes a strand of hair from hisforehead. She is shaking her head, chuckling lightly. "You were the sameat that age." Her voice is soft, full of longing. Jackson stares up ather, unable to reply. He wants to hear this, wishes he remembered living withher, being her baby, but he doesn't.

"I've alwayshated peas." Jackson says and she nods. Out of the corner of his eye hesees Mulder start to clean up. He's still laughing to himself. He knows heshould get up and help. After all this is his doing. But he can't move. Katieleans out of Dana's arms and puts her hand on his head, patting it. As thoughshe can tell he's sad, contemplative.

"You must bothget that from your fath – from Mulder." Dana catches her slip and both sheand Jackson blush.

"Scully, it's threeagainst one. I say we ban peas from the house. Right, Katie girl?" Thebaby giggles as Mulder kisses her nose.

"She eats it whenyou feed them to her." Jackson wants to know his secret. Mulder's smile is conspiratorialand he feels a soft stab inside; he can't help but wonder what it would havebeen like had he been with them at Katie's age. Would Mulder have managed tofeed him peas, too? Did Dana give up when he refused to eat them? Jackson swallows,feels sick.

"He mixes it withthe porridge," Dana says and Mulder pretends to be shocked at the reveal ofhis secret, "and thinks no one notices."

"Could never keepanything from you." He kisses her cheek. "You taste like mushy peas,Scully."

"Gah!" Katiegets another kiss, too.

"Yeah, you tastelike peas, too, kiddo." Then Mulder turns to him. Jackson is too old forthis game. Too much of a stranger, too. They've missed their chance. That'swhat he thinks, anyway, before Mulder leans down and kisses the top of hishead.

"We really needto ban the peas, Scully. Our kids deserve better."

"You're incorrigible,Mulder."

"Go take ashower, kid," Mulder squeezes Jackson's shoulder and smiles at him,"I'll clean up down here."

"But- I reallythought I could do this. I didn't think I-"

"Hey, you didnothing wrong, kid."

"Nothing atall." Dana chimes in, still holding Katie in her arms, rocking her backand forth. "Go wash up. Katie here will need a bath, too."

"Go and take a shower,Jackson. It's not the first time I have to clean up after Miss Katie. And thinkabout what you want for dinner, too. Nothing with peas!" Mulder laughsabout his own joke as Dana rolls her eyes, the smile never leaving her lips. Jackson'smouth twitches, too, into a shy smile.

This, he remindshimself, is his family.

#why this got long i'll never know #i haven't written baby fic in a while?#baby fic #msr #xf fanfic #my writing #my fic #Anonymous

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ghostbustermelanieking · 7 years ago

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the fountain chapter ten

chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five, chapter six, chapter seven, chapter eight, chapter nine

s6 fic: post milagro, tithonus and detour casefile, immortal scully, part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files

chapter ten

may, 1999

Scully woke slowly, as if surfacing from underwater. The smell of saline, the feeling of an IV, the beeping of the heart monitor. The itching of bandages along her torso. Her hands flat on the mattress, cold. And then she remembered and panicked, her fingers digging into the mattress as she struggled to sit up, as her mouth fell open to demand to know where he was.

There was a gap in her memory after that. Cool, white space in her mind, like hospital sheets. Her throat was raw from shouting. She asked one of the nurses what happened when she was brought ice chips, and the nurse told her that she'd been frantic when she woke up, asking for her partner. Her partner who wasn't there. Scully swallowed back nausea, nodded with her jaw clenched to hide the fact that she was about two inches away from crying. When the nurse left, she wiped her eyes with the edge of the sheets and buried her face in the side side of the pillow.

Her brother appeared at her bedside later, his face familiarly pale and worried. “Bill,” Scully rasped guiltily, tears stinging her eyes. It had been less than a week since her mother's car accident, and now her son had to come down to Florida because her daughter was in the hospital again. It was becoming a practically normal occurrence. “You didn't have to come,” she whispered as Bill took her hand.

“Of course I did, Danes,” Bill said, with his own hint of guilt in his voice. He squeezed her hand before letting go and sitting down beside her bed. “Mom sends her love. It took a lot to get her to stay home; she's really worried about you.”

Scully wiped tears from her eyes. “She's doing okay?” she whispered.

“She's doing fine.” Bill folded his hands, in a formal way that reminded Scully of her father delivering bad news and said in a grave tone, “I'm so sorry about your partner, Dana.”

It hit her like a truck, the fact that Mulder hadn’t made it. It never stopped being shocking, no matter how many times she told herself it was true. Scully let herself lie back limply on the mattress, blinking back more tears. “Thank you, Bill,” she said thickly.

Bill squeezed her hand again before letting it go. “I'm so glad you're okay, Danes,” he said softly. “This happens to you way too much.”

Scully slipped her hand under the sheet, touching the bandages along her side. “I know,” she said to the ceiling.

Mulder was always by her bedside when she woke up in the hospital. She'd known something was wrong as soon as she'd woken up and he wasn't there. She pushed hair behind her ears, tried to breathe deeply. Usually, these things didn't happen to both of them at once. Usually, both of them came out okay.

---

She didn't ask anyone what they knew about Mulder until Skinner came to visit. She wanted a straight answer, no one dancing around things to spare her feelings. She was terrified about what she'd learn—that Mulder was dead, that his body was lying in the morgue on a cold slab with a gaping wound in his throat—but she had to know. She had to know.

Skinner came in the afternoon the day after she woke up, when Scully was poking at a plastic cup of green Jello with no interest. “Agent Scully,” he said when he appeared in the doorway to her room. “How are you feeling?”

She pushed the cup aside, sitting up in bed. “What did you find, out in those woods?” she croaked sternly.

Skinner squirmed uncomfortably. “We found the crime scene and searched the surrounding area,” he said. “We don't have the resources to search the whole forest, I'm afraid…”

“What did you find about Mulder?” she snapped.

Skinner rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “We haven't found Mulder's body,” he said, and Scully's body sagged with an incredible amount of relief. “We found both yours and Mulder's blood type at the scene, excess amounts that would suggest that Mulder is as severely injured as you are, if not…” Skinner gave her a sympathetic look. “Scully, I just want to prepare you for what we might find.”

“I know what you might find,” she snapped. They'd taken her witness statement the day before; she'd told them everything that they'd seen, her voice not trembling a bit, her hands clutching the blanket hard. “I was there.”

Skinner was giving her a fatherly look, his own sorrow written across his face. “I know,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

She looked down at her lap uncomfortably. She just wanted to see Mulder. She'd had nightmares the night before, blood and flashing metal and Mulder's dark, pleading eyes. She'd gone over it again and again since she woke up, and she couldn't figure out why the two of them had been targeted. But she did know this: if she hadn't kicked him out of her motel room, if she'd gone with him to the forest or made him stay with her, one of them probably would've seen the kidnappers, been able to save each other. They were a team, and she had betrayed that because she was angry at him for looking for the fucking Fountain of Youth.

And then a spark in her mind: he'd been looking for the Fountain of Youth. What if he had found it? What if he'd been able to survive the wounds? Or what if blood loss had made her hallucinate and she'd seen things wrong, what if they'd given Mulder a less fatal wound then a slit throat? Whatever the reason, one thing seemed clear: she couldn't just accept the fact that he was dead. And if there was even the slightest possibility that he was alive…

They hadn't found a body. And besides that, she would know if he was dead, wouldn't she? She would know. And it didn't feel real, none of it, and oh god, she had to find him. Dead or alive, she had to find him.

“Mulder has looked for me every time I've disappeared,” she said to her knees. “And he found me every single time. And if he didn't find me, he didn't give up. He kept looking.”

“Yes,” said Skinner uncertainly. “Yes, he has. He did."

He'd always been there for her, always. She wasn't going to give up on him. She couldn't. “Then I'm going to find him,” she said, looking up at Skinner, dead serious. “He's my partner, and I'm not giving up on him. And if I can't find…” She swallowed back the lump in her throat. “If I can't find him, then I can find the people who attacked us. And I can bring them to justice.”

Skinner had a knowing look on his face now. “I didn't expect you to do anything differently,” he said.

---

october, 1999

They went straight to Scully's motel room. Scully wanted to take Mulder to a hospital, but he refused. They were both exhausted, and he hadn't slept peacefully in months. They agreed to go see Kravert and Skinner at the Bureau as soon as they both woke up. Mulder offered to get his own room, but Scully immediately shook her head. “I'm not leaving you alone,” she said. “It's fine. We can just share the bed.”

He didn't mind that proposition at all, but it had been awkward between them since they left the woods. Since he'd said he thought she wouldn't look for him. He needed to apologize for that. There were so, so many things he needed to apologize for, and he couldn't believe she was really there. Her presence was still so incredible to him.

He nodded his agreement silently. She offered him a small smile before turning and leading him into her room.

It was a different motel from the last time they'd been in Tallahassee, which he was more than relieved about. He'd spent way too much time reliving their last phone call, picturing Scully being attacked, reliving the fight they had just before he left. This motel room had one bed with a really ugly bedspread. The bed was still made, there was still a plastic container with little pools of salad dressing in the bottom on the desk. “Make yourself at home,” Scully said, setting her gun down on the bedside table. “I imagine you'll want a shower, I, uh… I have one of your t-shirts but none of your other clothes…” She unzipped her suitcase and pulled out a folded-up t-shirt. The Quantico t-shirt she'd worn the night after Padgett.

He swallowed and took the shirt from her. It probably smelled like her after all these months of her having it. “Thanks, Scully,” he said gratefully.

“Of course.” She looked down at the ground awkwardly.

He set the shirt down on the bed and stepped closer to Scully, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “Scully, I'm sorry,” he said.

Her shoulders hunched up, her arms clenched at her side. “For what, Mulder?” she mumbled. “You didn't do anything wrong.”

“I'm sorry for underestimating you.”

She looked up at him, her eyes full of emotion that he didn't often see. Scully was so good at putting up walls, but she so rarely let them down. “Mulder, you don't have to…” she started.

“I thought you'd think I was dead,” he said, and she flinched. He brushed the side of her face in an attempt to comfort her. “I should be dead,” he said softly. “I didn't think you'd believe…”

“I was in denial,” Scully said softly. “I told myself again and again that maybe I saw it wrong. But I was terrified you were dead. I was terrified that I had seen it right, and your throat had been slit.” She gestured to his neck again, the lack of a scar.

He wasn't going to argue whether or not his throat really had been cut, not now. He took her hand, intertwining their fingers. “I didn't think you'd believe it,” he whispered. “I shouldn't have underestimated you. I'm so sorry. I can't believe you looked for me all this time. I'm so grateful that you…”

Scully's eyes shifted back to the ground. “It's what you would've done for me,” she said. “And I couldn't… I didn’t want to accept that you were gone.”

Overwhelmed, he wrapped his arms around her, pressing his nose into her hair. She hugged him back tightly, her face buried in his chest. “I tried to keep the X-Files going,” she mumbled. “I'm no good at it, Mulder. They made a big mistake assigning me to you.”

He huffed out a laugh into her hair. “It was a mistake, but they screwed themselves, Scully, not me,” he said. “Your assignment was the best thing that's ever happened to me.”

She laughed wetly into his shirt and he kissed the top of her head. “And I need to apologize,” he said.

“Mulder, I told you, you don't have to do that.”

“No, I do.” He pulled back to look her in the eye. “When you said you didn't want to be alone… I wanted to make sure that didn't happened. I thought if I found the… the fucking Fountain of Youth…” He chuckled self-deprecatingly. “... I thought you could have the option if there was someone you wanted to… if I was… I don't know. But I should have talked to you first. I meant to talk to you first. But then we fought, and I went to find it because I didn't know what else to do, and I shouldn't have… It all just happened so fast.”

Scully reached up to cup his face. She was looking up at him, smiling shakily. “Mulder, it's okay,” she said. “It's okay.”

He kissed her this time, something he'd been wanting to do since last summer. For years, if he was being honest. Her lips were cold, but she surged against him, wrapping herself around him, her fingers slipping on the front of his shirt. He'd missed her. He'd missed her so, so much, but they were both there. They were both there.

---

They slept tangled up in the sheets and each other. It was the best that Mulder had slept in months, Scully curled into his side with a shirt she'd thrown on before they went to sleep hanging to her knees, his arms slung down over her ribs and his chin nudging the top of her head. No worry of death or dying, at least not yet. Scully had her gun on her bedside table, and Mulder had Samuel’s gun from that last struggle in the woods on his bedside table. He felt relaxed for the first time in months.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Scully muttered something that might’ve been his name, curling hard into him with her arm wrapped around his bare chest. He smiled, gathering her up and closing his eyes. We'll be okay, Scully had said in the car, but this was the first time he really believed it.

---

When he woke up, it was mid-morning, light streaming in through the windows. The shower was running in the other room—the source of Scully's absence, he assumed. He got out of bed, rubbing his mouth as he padded across the room, and pulled on the Quantico shirt and the dirty pants from the day before.

It was strange, not sitting by the door and listening for the footsteps of the Barclays, not pacing anxiously around the too-small room and wishing he was anywhere else, trying to plot an escape. At least the motel room were slightly bigger than his old bedroom. For a brief moment, he was eager to get back to Alexandria, back to his apartment, and then he realized that he probably didn't have an apartment anymore, after six months. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and sighed, wondered if anyone had taken the fish.

His hair was overlong from months of not getting a haircut. He was skinnier, his ribs more visible underneath his clothes. His reflection in the mirror looked haggard, unhealthy. He swallowed, pulling at the t-shirt. (It did smell like Scully.) He didn't look anything like an FBI agent. He looked like a victim.

The shower turned off in the bathroom, and Mulder turned away from the mirror, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Hey, Scully?” he called out carefully, trying not to startle her.

“Yeah?”

“I'm going to run to the lobby and get some food,” he said. “You want anything?”

“Bring me a bagel?” she asked.

“Sure.” He stood and walked to the door. “Be right back,” he called, shutting it behind him.

He gathered food from the continental breakfast in the lobby and headed back to the room. Scully was sitting on the edge of her bed, already dressed, hair in wet waves around her cheek. He thought about kissing her. “Hey,” he said instead, handing her the bagel.

She smiled at him brightly, taking the bagel. “Hi.”

He kissed her on the forehead as he sat down beside her, a strangely intimate gesture that he couldn't explain why he did but that he also couldn't keep from doing. “So what's the plan?” he asked.

“I'm calling Kravert and asking him to meet us here,” she said. “I don't want to drive that man's car more than we have to.”

“Samuel,” Mulder supplied, a bit bitterly.

“Samuel,” Scully repeated, a smidge of fury in her voice. “He's really going to heal? And the other one I shot?”

“Andrew,” said Mulder. “Yes, they will. I've never seen them do it, but they used the same thing I did for years and years. Chewed the leaves from the tree.”

“It felt strange to just leave him there,” Scully admitted, fiddling with her cross necklace. “But we need to go back and arrest them. And Virginia… Jesus, there's no way Kravert will believe me about Virginia. Maybe Skinner… You saw her, right? She stayed at the house with you? Do you know where she went?”

“All I know is that she went for Ritter,” Mulder said. His eyes drifted to the window; he saw something flicker at the window. “Scully, do you see something?” he whispered.

“What?” She turned, startled, towards his line of sight.

A shadow flickered across the floor. A very human-looking shadow.

“Scully, get the gun,” Mulder whispered.

Something busted through the window, shattering it on impact. Mulder scrambled to his feet, rushing to the window, and met Samuel Barclay head-on. He hit him directly in the place where the bullet had hit the night before; the other man yowled, tumbling back out of the window. But someone else was right behind him. Peter Barclay toppled through the window and stumbled to his feet, balled a fist in Mulder's t-shirt and shoved him backwards into the wall to the left. “Scully!” Mulder shouted, a warning, as he pushed at Peter’s shoulder in an attempt to get him away. Peter slammed him against the wall, and Mulder saw stars for a moment.

From over Peter’s shoulder, he saw Andrew tumble in through the window, gun aimed. “FBI, drop your weapon!” Scully shouted.

Peter lifted the gun in his own hand to Mulder's head, and Mulder scratched him hard in an attempt to get him to drop it. “Drop your weapon, agent!” Andrew was shouting. “We have you outnumbered!”

Mulder dug his fingernails into Peter’s hand, hard enough to draw blood, but it did nothing. The muzzle of the gun kept moving, brushed the side of his head, and his vision went briefly red. He jerked his head forward, banging foreheads with Peter so hard that his skull seemed to throb with pain, in protest for the abuse it had suffered over the last few minutes. They groaned simultaneously, and Mulder used the opportunity to shove Peter forward. He crashed into Andrew, knocking them both to the ground. The gun in Andrew’s hand fired. Far away, Mulder heard someone scream.

He dropped to his knees, ignoring the glass digging in, ignoring the throbbing of his head, and grabbed Andrew’s gun while the man was dazed. “Scully, you okay?” he shouted, aiming the gun at the two men.

“Fine,” Scully called, and he exhaled in relief. “Keep the gun on them.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched Scully cross the room, kicking Peter's gun across the room. A rustling sound at the window, and then Scully's stern voice: “FBI, hands in the air! Get in the window slowly.”

Andrew was not dazed anymore; he tried to strike out at Mulder, and Mulder stumbled backwards to his feet, keeping the gun aimed. “Move and I'll shoot you,” he said. “And even though you'll heal… I know it has to hurt like hell.”

Scully pinned Samuel to the wall, gun to his head. “Mulder, we have to get them out of here somehow,” she said pointedly. “I left my handcuffs in my car.”

Mulder clutched the gun harder, his mind racing. They had to restrain them somehow, but they were outnumbered in a way that would make it hard to leave either of them to find something. He was already worried about holding both Peter and Andrew at gunpoint. His eyes darted nervously towards Scully, nervously back to the men as he saw Peter start to stir, start to turn towards him. And then the door fell in with a hard kick.

Mulder jolted, gun wobbling in his hands. He couldn't look; he kept his focus on the Barclays. He briefly prayed it wasn't Virginia.

“Agent Mulder?” said a surprised voice, one that was familiar but Mulder had absolutely no idea why he thought so.

“Agent Kravert,” Scully said wearily from behind him. “A little help here, please? These are the men who tried to murder us.”

---

The Barclays were arrested, at the very least on charges of property damages. At the most, on Mulder and Scully's matching identifications as the men who stabbed Scully, and Mulder's testified six-month captivity. Kravert wanted to charge them with the other murders and the attack on Ritter as well, but Mulder insisted that they weren't the killers, and Scully actually backed him. “You could call them accomplices, but they didn't have a hand in any of the deaths that took place before our attack,” Mulder told Kravert and Skinner. “I met the murderer, I talked to her. It's Virginia Barclay. Somehow, she's still alive.”

Kravert looked like Mulder had suggested that Bigfoot was the killer. Skinner sighed, lifting his glasses and rubbing at his eyes, said, “Are you absolutely sure, Agent?”

He was surprised; he'd expected more resistance from Skinner, but maybe the man didn't want to downplay their reunion by immediately disagreeing with him. He said, “Positive, sir. I talked to her. She was the woman from the crime scene photos. She faked her death somehow and walked out of the morgue. That's why her body was the only one that disappeared.”

“An autopsy would've confirmed that she was still alive, so it makes sense that she would want to avoid one,” Scully put in.

“That is… highly improbable, Scully,” said Kravert, clearly dumbfounded.

“It's the truth,” Mulder said simply. He was more than done with playing around.

Skinner was still rubbing at his forehead like he had a headache. (Mulder knew the feeling.) “Do you have any idea where she might’ve gone?” he asked.

“No,” said Mulder, shaking his head. “All I know is that she went after Ritter because his connection to Fellig and Scully. I don't know where she went afterwards.”

Skinner turned to Kravert. “Put out an APB on Virginia Barclay,” he said. “Use the photos from the case files, since that's what Mulder recognized her from.”

Kravert looked between the three of them, and only encountering complete seriousness, he sighed. “Yes, sir,” he said, turning and jogging away.

Skinner turned back towards where Mulder and Scully were standing side by side. “Agent Scully,” he said sternly. “Going after Agent Mulder without backup was incredibly irresponsible.”

“Yes, sir,” Scully said bluntly. Her jaw was set, a neutral look on her face. No regrets. God, he loved her.

Skinner sighed again, adjusted his glasses before reaching out to touch Mulder's shoulder. “Mulder, I am incredibly relieved that you are okay,” he told him sincerely.

“Thank you, sir,” said Mulder. He'd surprisingly missed Skinner in those six months, even more than he had during the months under Kersh. After everything, he had a certain amount of appreciation for the man, who'd more than proved where his loyalties laid.

Skinner squeezed his shoulder before letting go. “The motel has provided you with new rooms,” he intoned. “Get some rest, agents. We've got it from here.”

They nodded, turned away as Skinner walked off. Mulder leaned close to Scully as he whispered, “Notice he didn't mention anything about Virginia Barclay coming back for us.”

“I think a begrudging APB is about the best we're going to get out of this situation, Mulder,” Scully said. “Seeing as how Virginia Barclay was declared dead eight months ago.”

“Scully, I'll remind you that the X-Files have had much more dead culprits than Virginia Barclay,” Mulder replied.

“It doesn't matter,” Scully said as they went to the front office. “We'll both be on alert in case Virginia comes back. But we've more than paid our dues on this case, and it's not our job to look for Virginia Barclay.”

Mulder swallowed as they pushed the door open. “Unless she decides to come back for you,” he said quietly.

Scully looked up at him, her eyes full of wordless affirmations. “She won't,” she said firmly. “And even if she does, I won't be alone.”

Mulder nodded, brushed his fingers along the inside of her arm. “No, you won't,” he said.

They asked the front desk for one room.

---

They ended up spending the day watching TV on the bed. They ordered in room service, and Mulder ate ravenously. They sat with their arms touching, extra pillows piled up at their back. They didn't kiss. They touched a little more than necessary, but then again, that was their usual M.O., if only six months stale. Mulder's heart still beat a little too fast with Scully this close to him, the reaction of a teenager. Neither of them brought up the night before. They both jumped violently at any sudden sounds from the other room.

Sometime after it got dark, Scully fell asleep curled against his shoulder. He smiled affectionately, brushed hair off of her face and tucked the thin motel quilt around her shoulders. He was exhausted, too, and was about to turn off the TV (because he knew it bothered Scully) and go to sleep when the phone rang.

The motel phone, on the bedside table. Mulder wondered if the front desk had been instructed to call and check on them as he fumbled to answer before the ringing phone woke Scully up. He shoved the phone beneath his ear and said, “Hello?”

“Mr. Mulder?” said a voice that made Mulder's blood freeze in his veins, that made him want to throw off the covers and run, make sure he was still safe and free to leave whenever he wanted. God, he'd thought this was over. “Mr. Mulder, it's Peter Barclay.”

“Where the hell are you calling from and what the hell did you want?” Mulder snapped viciously, sitting straight up in bed. His hands were trembling. This was supposed to be over.

Scully was starting to stir beside him, rolling over in the empty space where he'd been lying down, her nose against his knee.

“Calm down, Mr. Mulder. I'm calling from a holding cell,” Barclay said. “You're my ‘lawyer’.”

Scully rolled onto her back, blinking owlishly up at him. Mulder clutched the phone hard and said, “So what the fuck do you want?”

“I want you to stop my daughter, Mr. Mulder,” Barclay said. “I know what she wants now. I didn't know before, but I understand now. The day I've dreaded for centuries has come.”

“I don't know what you mean,” he growled. Scully rose up on one elbow and mouthed, Barclay? He nodded tensely. “But I don't want to listen to it,” he said, and reached to cut it off.

“I know that Virginia wants to die,” said Peter before he could. “And I know what she will do next. She'll either go after your partner or the other man she tried to kill, the only ones who survived her attempts.”

And they're the only ones who were there when Fellig died, Mulder thought regrettably, fingers clenching around the receiver.

“Don't listen to him,” Scully said, sitting up in bed. “It doesn't matter. We're fine.”

Peter was talking over her, two voices echoing in Mulder's ears. “If she figures out how to die, then she will die,” he said. “And I don't want this. And if she fails, then your partner will be in danger of dying, and I know you don't want that. Please, Mr. Mulder, stop this from hap—”

Scully took the phone from him and hung up. “Mulder, you don't have to listen to what he says,” she said. “We're prepared for if Virginia comes, and even if she does…” She bit her lower lip, the blue light of the television flickering off of her face. “Well, if you really think I'm immortal, then it's not a problem,” she added softly.

“I don't want to see you hurt again,” he said in a rush. “But all of that aside… Scully, Peyton Ritter isn't immortal. If she goes after him, he's got no protection, especially if he's still in the hospital.”

Scully's eyes widened slightly. “She's going to go after him,” she said. “We have to help him.”

#xf fanfic #i wrote this #xf rewatch

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gilliansanderson · 7 years ago

Text

If Ever There Is Tomorrow; Chapter 2

A/N: Sorry this took forever, I had to physically beat the words out of the muses mouth for this, I tell you. Next one should be up quicker I swear. Anyway, tagging @fictober and @today-in-fic

[Chapter 1] [AO3]

2. Where The Wild Things Are

Fall 1971

The once green leaves have fallen and turned to rust. They rustle softly in the breeze, accompanying a symphony of cicadas as they mourn the end of summer. Mulder is ten years old today, and in typical Mulder fashion, had decided the only just way to celebrate hitting double digits was a trip to the gloomy forest. Dusk seeps in like the tide; Home-time has long since passed, but Mulder has a flashlight and a story to tell.

“Once,” he begins, voice dramatically hushed. Perched on the rotting trunk of a fallen tree, his young audience leans in, eager to catch his words. “In these very woods, lived a very old, very bad man. He lived in the very tops of the trees and from up there he could the whole world. He lived on rats and owls and, occasionally, lost little girls,”

The mid-October wind picks up forcefully, a chilling wail punctuating his words, the small group shivers and huddles ever closer. “One day there was this girl, she was nearly seven years old and had long brown hair, her parents were worried, because she went away one night and never came home, so they went looking in these woods all night, but when they finally found her she was dead, in a nest of bones on the top of the highest tree and the man had chewed her face right off…”

“Stop it, Fox! You’re scaring Samantha,”

Samantha had grown visibly pale. Scully, snapped out of her trance, puts a comforting arm around her, “Don’t worry,” she whispers in the other girl’s ear, “It’s only pretend,”

Mulder’s inner circle consisted of his sister, his best friend, and his best friend’s sister, who though quite fond of Mulder was even fonder of Samantha, with her braid-able hair and a mutual love for Barbie dolls which Dana, despite her greatest efforts, had never come to share. So it comes as no surprise when Melissa jumps to her defence.

“I think I’ll take her home, Danes,” she tells them, rising to her feet and dusting off her floral skirt.

“Aw, c’mon Missy, don’t be a killjoy,” Scully groans, but Samantha stands and throws her an apologetic smile, “It’s okay Dana, I’m kinda tired anyway,”

“Don’t stay out too late or mom will freak,” Melissa says with the proud authority only an older sibling could possess, before tugging the younger girl gently behind her, until the warm glow of her lantern fades into the distance and plunges the forest into black once again.

“Well, what do we do now?” Scully huffs. “Have I told you the one about the Jersey Devil, Scully?”

She rolls her eyes towards the moon. “Only like a billion times,”

“How about hide and seek?” he concedes, “Or are you afraid of the bad man too?”

They glance up at the twisted treetops concealing the glittering night, no monster in sight. “I’ll play with you, Mulder,” Scully smirks and quickly turns, “But you have to find me first!” she calls behind her as she darts off through the trees.

Mulder shuts his eyes and counts to ten.

Fall 1978

Dana hovers nervously on the fringe of the cafeteria, a plastic tray filled with questionable mac and cheese and neon green Jell-O held in an iron grip, for which she is quickly losing her appetite. This is the part she despises. catching people’s eyes, pretending to be interested, to be interesting, trying in vain to explain where she came from; everywhere and nowhere. She hates feigning a confidence which she so desperately lacked.

Dana’s tendency to overthink was new and overpowering. Somewhere along the way, in some school locker room or some sleepover where she was just a pity invite, she had lost the invulnerability of childhood, and let insecurity seep under her skin with every whisper and sideways glance, at every failed attempt to infiltrate friendships which had already been forged in the fires of early adolescence.

Her code-breaking docs squeak on the linoleum floor, she is painfully aware that she’s beginning to attract attention. She feels too small and too large all at once, somehow taking up too much space, yet not nearly enough.

That’s when she feels the hand on her back.

“Scully,” he all but whispers, “Can we talk?”

She trips over air as she recoils. Macaroni becomes airborne, half the room turns to stare. Dana’s face matches the ketchup splattered on the floor. “I don’t have anything to say to you,” She seethes. She had been avoiding him like the plague since she ran out of the principal’s office, thinking she’d be doing them both a favor by avoiding confrontation.

“Scully, I’m sorry, I just…” Mulder stammers, his gaze intense, mournful, nervous. What right did he have to be nervous? Anger overrides anxiety as years of dormant resentment bubbles to the surface and erupts like a volcano.

“Don’t call me that. You have no right to call me that, you can’t talk to me as if you know me, like we’re still friends. Friends write, Mulder! Friends talk to each other, friends acknowledge each other’s existence! I don’t care what you have to say, it’s too late for this, Mulder, I don’t want to talk to you or Samantha or anyone…”

She’s cut off by someone grabbing her wrist, pulling her roughly away from Mulder’s wounded expression, from the hundreds of eyes trained on the scene before them and into the girl’s dingy bathroom.

“Missy, I was handling it,”

“You weren’t handling shit, Dana. Fuck.” Her sister curses as she bolts the door and cracks open the window. “Why did you have to go and make a scene? It’s been hard enough on him already,”

Dana catches sight of herself in the mirror and quickly looks away. She already hates her features, they’re worse when twisted with rage. “Hard enough on him? What the fuck, Missy, who’s side are you on?”

Melissa sighs and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, putting one shakily to her mouth, “I knew I should have just told you,”

Dana is momentarily stunned. Her mom had made them promise that they would never smoke when her grandfather passed away, after years of sucking on cigars turned his blackened lungs to ash. She’d already broken that promise several times, but she hadn’t thought that her sister ever would, and for some reason, this fills her with unease.

“Told me what?” Her fingers fumble to strike the match, but she finally sparks a flame. After a long moment of silence, she speaks. “Dad made me swear not to tell you” Smoke billows from her lips, curling and dancing under the fluorescent light, poisoning the air with her poison words. “Samantha was taken, Dana. She was kidnapped, I guess, a few months after we left Massachusetts,”

The walls constrict and the world turns on its side. All Dana could focus on was the tears trailing down her sister’s cheeks, leaving track marks in her rouge, as the things she was telling her registered in her brain. “I guess they thought… How do you even explain that shit to an eight-year-old? What if we had stayed a bit longer? you practically lived there and…”

Dana remembers how to breathe around the same time she remembers how to speak. Oxygen feels like fire in her lungs, her fury burns in her throat. “And what?” she rasps, “What? you think it could have been me?”

“Dana, don’t…” her sister pleads.

“How could you even think to keep something like that from me? She was my friend too, Missy. Mulder was my friend and…”

Mulder. Shit.

Dana bursts out of the bathroom, throughout the crowded dining hall, conversations stall. Mulder is already gone.

Fall 1993

As a child, Scully had a recurring dream of being stuck in a museum overnight, the exhibits would come alive and start to speak. The Smithsonian at this moment was dead, as she stares at the Neanderthals behind the darkened glass, Darwin’s apes learning to walk, she wonders what they would say.

Nature had never come naturally to her. While it felt like practically all her friends were getting married, getting pregnant, getting mortgages, all she was getting was older. And then there’s Mulder.

She feels his lingering presence long before his reflection appears the glass.

“You always did have a knack for running away,” his voice echoes throughout the empty room, life amongst the ruins of the ancient and extinct.

“You’re one to talk, Mulder,” she bites back, feels him flinch, and immediately wants to stuff the words back in her mouth

“I didn’t mean…”

“I know what you meant,”

This was something they were still getting used to. Their dynamic was all new, yet all too familiar, a battle of wits in an instant turn into a hesitant dance. They compliment and contradict each other to the point that it was maddening. There had always been something about this man, and the boy he used to be, which sparked an insatiable curiosity, a hunger for the extraordinary, one that could never be satisfied by homily divorcees or besotted superiors to her eternal frustration.

“Are you going to let me look at that?” she softly breaks the silence, nodding to the fresh wound on Mulder’s ribs, which he was gingerly palming through his blazer.

“You just wanna see me with my shirt off,” he grunts, “You shouldn’t abuse your medical license for personal reasons, Scully,”

“It only seems fair after Bellefleur,” She allows her self a smirk

“You have some recently un-repressed memories you want to discuss?” He laughs humorlessly, their banter turning dry as it comes back to Samantha, as it would always come back to Samantha. Scully remembers listening to his regression tapes, seeing her picture in that file, how her heart hit the floor. The doe-eyed girl in a nightdress, the girl who had cried when other kids scraped their knees or stepped on ants. Scully can see the Samantha-shaped hole her absence left behind his eyes, and she can’t blame him at all. She gives up the attempt to lighten the mood and cuts to the chase.

“I know you believe she’s out there Mulder, I want to believe she’s alright too, but…“ she chooses her words carefully, “But I don’t want to see you keep getting hurt,”

The silence is deafening, she starts to think that the wax figures might break the silence before Mulder does, but then he hooks his fingers gently around hers and anchoring her gaze to his. “I just… need to find out, Scully,” he murmurs, “Even if that means doing it on my own,”

Scully studies Darwin’s early men and thinks of how far they’ve evolved, how far they still have to go. Maybe subconsciously she feels she owes it to the girl she once was or the girl she once knew, but she feels herself being drawn in deeper down the rabbit hole, drawn back to him. She takes a deep breath and squeezes his hand, answering his unspoken question.

“You won’t be alone,”

#If Ever There Is Tomorrow #txf fanfic #msr fic #fictober #Anyway I kinda hate this #its sloppy and tonally inconsistent but at least its DONE #todayinfic #my stuff

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lepus-arcticus · 7 years ago

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14.

(A/N: This installment contains potentially triggering content.) It’s Christmas in San Diego. Tara, pregnant, is abundantly, extravagantly feminine, breasty and tiger-striped with purplish striae, smelling of milk and cotton. In her presence, Scully feels brittle and ornery, cronelike, spare. She remembers the night Bill proposed. It was before her abduction, and she was at Mulder’s, going over a case. Files spread out on his coffee table, crowded with takeout pho and Shiner Bock, her mother on the phone. “Did you know,” Mulder had said, “that Tara’s the name of the female Bodhisattva? Your brother’s bagged himself the Moon of Primordial Awareness, Scully. The Supreme Mother. The Lotus of the Night.” He’d been a little drunk that night, handsy, and she’d giggled nervously and set her feet upon his knees on the couch. “She’s a Republican, Mulder, I doubt she’s the lotus of anything.” But here she is; Tara, the Carrier of the World, of that one tenacious blastocyst, a real human being called forth from the aether. Scully lays her hand over Tara’s quaking belly, and finds herself acutely aware that she’ll never know what it is to have two heartbeats. She is wreathed in gunmetal and cadaver flesh, rot and catastrophe, dipping her latexed fingers into the river Styx. It’s no wonder Life wants nothing to do with her - she’s Death’s best girl. And sometimes, like this Christmas, he even brings her a gift. Melissa’s ghost rasps over the phone line, and suddenly, Dana has a daughter.

Emily. Her strange, sober child, that Irish candor, the gravitas of the seriously ill. Big for her age, like Bill was. Like she imagines Mulder’s children would be. Of course, Emily was immediately enamoured of him - with his romantic, craggy features and his nebulous, intelligent aura, he’d been charming the Scully women for years. Something dangerous yearned within her at the sight of them together. How wonderful a father he would be, if he was not who he was. Are you two the parents? Emily, with her cinnamon-sugar hair and her serious gaze, her life of fear and pain. She should be collecting milky fistfuls of dandelions. She should be swimming in the ocean, eating August strawberries from the bush, going to science camp, hitting softballs in the park. She should be listening to Scully’s old punk records, hogging the phone line, falling in love. She should be sneaking out of the house, developing a taste for dark beer, bickering with a graying Mulder at the dinner table over whether she should attend Oxford or Yale. But her child is a science experiment, a test subject, a lab rat. Seventeen days after Scully first sets eyes on her daughter, she holds her in a hospital bed as her life slips away. Brushing the sweat-soaked hair away from Emily’s cold little forehead, Scully, dry-eyed and outraged, tells her child about the beautiful life they deserved to have together. They take Emily’s body away from her. Tara gives birth twenty minutes later and two floors up. Scully hyperventilates alone in the hospital bathroom, and sits down to find the crotch of her panties soaked in useless blood. - At the funeral, Mulder brings flowers. A habit of his, undoubtedly some remnant of his genteel breeding. Lilies after her sister is murdered. Roses after he forces himself on her, infects her tattoo with his come. Cornerstore carnations in the oncology ward. Baby’s breath for her dead daughter. He brings her flowers, and bends over her with his soft eyes, and she forgives him everything. When she opens Emily’s coffin, craving Death’s familiar, comforting face, she finds sand and burlap, and a single scrap of gold. - Bill’s house, Navy issue. She can’t sleep. Matthew’s heartrending squalls, Tara’s muffled cooing, a brooding, unwelcome guest on the couch downstairs. Scully shifts out of bed, and makes a pit stop in the bathroom to remove her tampon, avoiding her reflection in the mirror. He’s awake, of course. The stairs creak under her slight weight, and he meets her eyes from the couch. He’s been crying. A ray of fury dazzles through her - how dare he? He already has a little girl to cry for. Emily is hers. Are you two the parents? Silently, Scully goes to him, stepping out of her panties under the stolen, oversized Knicks tee she’s wearing as pajamas. She straddles him, settles into his warm lap. Mulder hesitates, his dark eyes sorrow and pine, and then settles his hands lightly on her thighs. “Scully, this isn’t what you want.” His voice is thick and low, like molasses, like tar. Matthew screams upstairs. She is actively bleeding, staining his sweats, staining Tara’s floral couch. She reaches down between them, under his clothes, grasping his limp penis. He flinches uncomfortably. “You should have told me,” she whispers sharply, holding the words between her teeth like a dagger. “You should have told me they took my ova. It’s my body. I deserved to know.” “I didn’t want... you were sick -” he reaches up to her face, but she swats him away with her free hand. “- Shut up.” She extends her fingers to cup his balls, relishing the swell of his cock under her palm. “I had to find out what was done to me in front of a judge, Mulder. A stranger.” She removes her hand to lick her fingers, gathering saliva, a reflex made wholly unnecessary by the wet, bloody massacre between her thighs. Are you two the parents? Mulder gently tugs her hand away from her mouth. “Stop it, Dana.” But still, he lets her anoint the head of his half-hard cock, lets her center herself, lets her shove herself uncomfortably onto him. She digs her nails into his heather-gray shoulders, streaking her dark blood onto his t-shirt. He circles each of her wrists with a broad hand. “What else are you keeping from me?” she says, voice shaking, the pained skew of his face urging her on. “In what other ways can I expect to be humiliated by you?” She wants him to hurt her, hit her, wants him to take her like he did after Jerse, wants him to make her forget. Her belly clenches, a familiar female ache. He’s softening inside of her. Disgust roils in her throat, and she dashes her fist once into his chest, wrenches herself off of him, collects her panties from the floor, storms back upstairs. Matthew’s muscular shrieking nearly shakes the walls. She thinks she hears Tara crying too now, the exhausted, hopeless weeping of a new mother. Bill’s muffled, frustrated tenor. How can mom sleep through this? What the fuck is she taking? She reaches her room, and closing the door behind her, curls pathetically into the bed, the tears coming at last. After a moment or two, she hears the door click open again. The small bed sinks under Mulder’s weight as he slides in next to her, shielding her in his arms, surrounding her parched, scraped-out body as she silently weeps. She hates that she loves him so desperately, hates that she ever kissed him in Bellefleur. He is a Midas, and sooner or later, everything he touches is beautiful and dead.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)

#Incrementum #tw: infertility #tw: death #tw: periods #tw: dubcon #I don't know what else to tag #it's a sad one folks

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ghostbustermelanieking · 7 years ago

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snow in april (chapter 5 of 8)

deadalive au, casefile

one /// two /// three /// four

Mulder jolted in place, fumbling for his gun before he remembered that he didn't have it. His hand slipped uselessly down the side of the quilt and he looked back up towards the window, pulse thundering in his ears.

The scarecrow was gone.

Heart pounding and not entirely sure if he'd imagined it or not, Mulder scrambled to his feet. It had gotten a hundred times colder, it seemed; his breaths came out in puffs and the cold floor was like needles under his bare feet. He went into the kitchen and fumbled in the dark for some kind of defense. His fingers curled around the handle of a knife and he snatched it up. The moonlight bounced off the blade as he held it threateningly out in front of him. Silence in the room outside of his ragged breathing.

He needed to see Scully. He needed to make sure she was okay. He stumbled to the door, knife held down by his side, and opened it clumsily, whispering, “Scully?” frantically.

A murmur before the figure in the bed moved. “Mulder, what is it?” she mumbled, shoving at the quilts. He couldn't deduce her mood by her voice.

“I… just wanted to check on you,” he said as the memory of their fight came crashing down on him. “And I wanted to…”

He made the mistake of looking towards the window. The scarecrow was back, and it seemed to be smirking at him.

“Scully!”

“What?” She was struggling to get up and look at him, balance thrown off by her stomach. He stumbled to the edge of the bed to help her up and assumedly shield her, but when he looked up the scarecrow was gone again. “Mulder, what is it?” Scully asked softly. She sounded confused and a little scared. Her eyes were red like she'd been crying. She was somewhat leaning against him, and she moved off and onto the pillows to look at him.

“Scully?” he asked, eyes going back to the window. All he could see was the snow and the overlying dark of the trees and the night sky. “Did you see something at the window?”

“No,” she said, and he couldn't gage whether she was concerned or irritated. “Did you?”

“I thought I did,” he muttered, lowering the knife to the bedside table.

Her hand pressed into his arm, and she said, “Mulder…” in a weary voice.

“Scully, I'm sorry,” he said, because he was sorry and he was worried about her and he wasn't going to leave her alone with… something walking around the cabin and peering in the windows. “I had no idea…”

She sighed, just as wearily, and said, “Come here.”

“What?”

She shifted back onto her side, facing him, said, “Come here,” and seized a handful of his t shirt and pulled him down beside her. “It's freezing,” she mumbled, leaning her head against his chest. “I'm sorry, too. I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.”

He certainly wasn't going to argue this point at the moment, not with something stalking them outside, so he shifted closer and pulled the blankets over them. Her breath puffed out in cold bursts, and she kept a hard hold on his shirt. The baby kicked furiously between them and he stroked the spot.

He saw something move outside the window and held her a little closer, burying his face in her hair. Something scraped slowly across the window, an unusual sound, and he looked up to see a straw hand dragging a slow path across the glass.

---

He woke up with his cheek plastered to the mattress and Scully gone. He shoved the covers aside, panicking, and was preparing to shout her name when she came into the room, holding a steamy mug. “Hi,” she said, sitting on the edge of the mattress.

“Hi,” he said, awkwardly, shifting into a sitting position. He shivered in the chilly air. “I thought you were…”

“I'm fine,” she said, looking down at her knees.

One of her palms was braced against the mattress and Mulder placed his hand over hers. “I'm so sorry, Scully,” he said. “I had no idea what it was like for you…”

“It's not your fault. How could you know?”

“You could've told me,” Mulder pointed out.

She slid her hand out from under his, clutching the mug in both hands. “You never told me about what it was like during my abduction,” she replied softly. “I had to find out from Skinner.”

“Things were different between us back then. I didn't want to burden you.”

“It wouldn't have been a burden, Mulder,” she said tightly. “But by that logic, why should I burden you?”

“Of course I'd want to know, Scully.” She was still holding the mug so he touched her side gently. “I worry, you know.”

“I know.” She took a long sip from the mug before setting it down on the bedside table. “I just… thought you'd know. How it'd affect me. I thought it went unsaid.”

He pulled at a loose string at the quilt, embarrassed and unsure of what to say. “I did know,” he mumbled. “How it would affect you. That was why I didn’t tell you. About the… my… brain disease.”

“And you thought that would be better?” Her voice was sharp. “Mulder, you would’ve killed me if I’d kept my cancer from you. You would’ve been furious. You would’ve accused me of pushing you away.”

“This was different,” he hissed.

“How, Mulder? How was it different?”

He opened his mouth, shut it. He didn’t have an excuse, other than that he didn’t want to see that look on her face - of devastation, of bargaining or planning to save him or denial. He didn’t want to cause her that pain. It was a stupid decision, and he regretted making it. He would’ve told her if he’d known about the baby.

“It’s over now,” Scully said, stiffly, pressing fists into her knees. “You’re okay. That’s what matters. I just want to make sure you stay that way.”

He got up, stumbling over a shoe he’d left on the floor the day before. “I’m going for a run,” he said, not looking back at her, grabbing his shoes and shoving them on his feet.

“Just make sure you don’t disappear back to Calvert’s,” she muttered, voice thick with resent.

Mulder bit his lip so he wouldn’t say the things he was thinking and let the door close hard behind him. It was still freezing inside; he tried to turn the heat up but the thermostat was clearly broken. Swearing, he grabbed his jacket and went out into the cold.

He ran, in no particular direction and with no destination in mind, until his lungs burned and he stopped, leaning hard against a tree. His eyes slipped closed; he tried to catch his breath, wiping sweat away from his forehead.

“You're Mulder, right?”

He jolted, startled, before he recognized the voice and turned. Lyla Haswell, bundled up in a coat and hat and scarf and mittens, was looking up at him curiously, molding a snowball between her wool palms. “Yeah,” he said. “Hi, Lyla. What are you doing here?” (He barely knew how to be around children, he’d be a terrible father.)

“Playin’. Mommy lets me go to the end of the street.” She launched the snowball past him and it smacked hard something behind him, a satisfying thump. “Did you see the scarecrows last night?”

Mulder froze a little, turning to look at where the snowball had hit. He was standing in front of Calvert’s fence with its line of scarecrows. He flinched violently at the sight of the effigies, but they didn't move. One of them, a newer-looking one, fluttered in the wind, straw hat placed lopsided on its face.

“Anna and I came down here last night,” Lyla added confidentially. “We missed ‘em, though. They were already gone. We saw their footprints.” She offered him a gap-toothed smile. “Did you see them, Mulder?”

He shrugged, trying to regain some nonchalance. “Is your mom home?”

“Uh-huh.” The girl kicked at a pile of snow. “She's been on the phone all morning, yelling, so she sent me out to play. She didn't wanna go to church cause she's mad at the preacher. Where's that other lady you were with?”

“You mean Scully? Um… Dana, I mean?”

“Uh-huh. Dana. She was nice.”

“She's back at the house,” he said. “Just me today.”

Lyla kept kicking at the pile of snow; she seemed to be forming a structure with the toe of her boot. “Our house is down that way if you wanna go help Mom out,” she announced. “I'm gonna watch the scarecrows and see if they move.”

Mulder might’ve asked more questions, might’ve stayed and watched himself, if he wasn't scared of what would happen if he did. Of what the scarecrows wanted. (A ridiculous sentence, but a valid one considering the events of last night. And besides that, it was hardly the most ridiculous thing he'd been pursued by.) So he trailed down the snowy street towards Haswell’s house in silence.

In retrospect, he hadn't considered the case since sometime the night before. He'd been too busy getting scared and arguing with Scully. And he hadn't thought of anything on the run; he ran to forget. But now it was staring him in the face again, the prospect of the deaths. He couldn't leave things unfinished, but he also had to get enough to get things started. Maybe if he and Haswell could gather enough evidence, then he and Scully could leave, send Doggett The New Wonder Partner here to deal with it. Get justice for these people and not get himself killed (again) in the process. This was definitely an X-File; if the cause of death hadn't confirmed that, then the strange scarecrows did. There had to be a connection.

He went to Haswell's door and knocked on it, hoping she'd have good news. “Agent Mulder,” she said with surprise when she opened. “Come on in.”

“You really don't have to add the agent every time; just Mulder is what most call me,” he said, stepping inside - they were somewhat colleagues, and besides that, he already called her by her surname in his head. (Force of fucking habit, seeing as how he referred to all of his friends, his boss, and the love of his fucking life in that manner.) “I don't know if I'll be able to convince Scully to do the autopsies,” he added, remembering their conservation the night before. “We, um. Had a fight last night.” And were visited by personified effigies. You know. Normal stuff for us.

“That's okay, considering they won't let me exhume the bodies,” Haswell said with some frustration, throwing down her phone on the counter. It gave a hollow little clatter.

“What? Were the families unwilling?”

“They didn't even bother to ask the families, just shot me down. Said there was no use in doing an autopsy because they died of goddamn natural causes.” Haswell kicked the table leg in frustration before sitting wearily down in a chair next to the table. “I'm sorry you and Scully fought,” she added.

Not very used to discussing his personal issues, especially when it came to relationships, he said, “That's fine,” awkwardly, and quickly changed the subject. “Is there any other way to implicate Calvert?”

“There's always the possibility that Calvert didn't do it. We could interview him and see if there's anyone who he thinks would've been targeting his patients.” Haswell sighed, ducking her head. Loose hair fell around her face, shielding it from view. “Honestly, I don't know what's come over me. A day ago, I wouldn't have suspected Calvert… that any of these deaths were murders… and now…”

Mulder remembered the point Scully had made the day before, that Haswell had seemed off, in a way, almost like she was hiding something. He could see it now - her uncertainty, uneven tone. “Things come at you out of nowhere sometimes,” he tried.

Haswell sighed again, pulling at a patch of peeling paint on the wall with her thumbnail. “That is true.”

His mind straying back to the night before, he asked, “Do you remember Anna's story about the scarecrows?”

“Yeah, but that's just a kid's story, like I told you.” She dug her thumbnail under a chunk of paint, not looking at him.

She probably wouldn't believe him, but worth a shot. “I think there's some substance to it,” he said.

Haswell snorted, rolling the chunk of paint between her thumb and forefinger. “What makes you think my daughter's ghost story has substance?”

Since opening the X-Files, he'd operated on a just say it policy, thinking that people would either believe him or they wouldn't. There was a point where he stopped caring whether anyone besides Scully believed him, in the long run. “I saw them,” he said. “Outside my window. Staring in at me. I heard them.”

Haswell made a sound of disbelief that he was a little too used to hearing. “Do you think Calvert drugged you?”

Mulder blinked rapidly, surprised. “What?”

Haswell shrugged. “Made you see things. Part of his plan, since you made yourself a target. Hallucinations.”

“I didn't take anything from him,” Mulder said tensely. “I know what I saw.”

She shrugged again, finally turning to face him. “People tell stories about the scarecrows, Mulder, but I've never seen them move in my lifetime in this town, or the thirteen years I’ve spent in this house. You've convinced me that these are murders; there's enough proof of that. But I'm not going to go waste my time digging into ghost stories.”

Okay, then; she wouldn't believe him about the scarecrows and they seemed to be out of options. Fine. “I just wanted to stop in for a minute,” he said shortly. “I should go on now.”

“All right, then.” Haswell stood, assumedly to show him to the door. “I'll try and get an interview with Calvert.”

“You have Scully's number, just call her if you get it,” he said. “Although I probably shouldn't go, as a ‘patient’ of his. Keeping up personas and all.”

“You're probably right.” They went together towards the door, passing a framed photograph of a guy who looked vaguely like Lyla holding a baby and a chubby-cheeked toddler with pigtails on his lap. Haswell smiled wistfully when she saw it. “That's Anna and Lyla with their dad,” she explained.

The guy in the picture looked healthy, happy, holding his children with blissful ease. Mulder tried to picture himself like that with the baby and found the image fuzzy but there, whole.

“How did your husband die?” he asked, even though it was none of his business.

Haswell gulped, looking down at her shoes, and he instantly felt bad for asking. He understood grief as well as anyone, understood the cloud it cast over you. “It was at a church picnic at the river,” she said. “Lyla was a baby and I stayed home with her. My husband… Bobby… he took Anna for the afternoon. The reverend called me and told me there'd been an accident. Anna had almost drowned and when Bobby jumped in to try and save her, he hit his head on a rock and bled out.”

Her voice was hard, like she resented him for asking. He thought about telling her that he really did understand, that his father, mother, sister, and ex-girlfriend/ex-near-fiance were all dead, that he himself had been dead a week ago. “I'm sorry,” he said instead.

“It's been a long time,” said Haswell, the traditional grief answer. “It's hard, but I'm used to it.” She walked past him to open the door. “Thanks for dropping by, Mulder; I'll call you if anything new comes up.”

“Thank you,” he said awkwardly, moving towards the door.

“Tell Scully I said hello,” she added, door halfway closed. “And whatever’s going on between you two… I hope you work it out.” With that, she closed the door gently but firmly.

I hope so, too, he thought, turning to head back to the house. He found Anna Haswell waiting for him once again, arms crossed over her chest. “Did you see the scarecrows?” she asked, with that childhood fascination he used to have on X-Files.

Should he tell a kid? She seemed to be the only other one who'd seen them before. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Last night. Is that bad?”

Anna considered his question, tipping her head to the side. “Only if they see you,” she said finally, before moving past him into the house.

Well. They had definitely seen him. And Scully, too.

Mulder ran all the way home, lungs burning, heart pounding. Scully jumped when he burst into the house, sweaty and out of breath. She was on her feet and heading into the bedroom before he could say anything.

“Scully…” he gasped, trying to get her to stop.

The door shut behind her.

---

The Haswells had a strict policy of sitting down to dinner every night, and it was a mostly unbroken policy. Usually Mari Haswell was a pretty good cook but tonight they ended up with burned grilled cheese. “Sorry, guys,” their mom said as they sat down. “I'm a little out of it.”

No kidding, Anna thought darkly. Ever since those FBI agents came around, everything had been changing. She was used to the scarecrows, sneaking down to Calvert’s and watching them, and she was used to her mom getting a little withdrawn for a few days every time they moved. But this was different. She was becoming obsessed, pushing away people they'd known forever - when Lyla had suggested inviting Jeff to movie night, she'd vehemently declined, and she'd refused to go to church that morning because of an argument with the reverend. Not that Anna entirely minded - she'd had an irrational hate of the reverend since she was a kid, hated to be near him. But still, it was weird behavior for her mom. She'd become completely absorbed in… something, and suddenly these FBI agents were her new best friends. It was strange.

“Mommy, can we have soup?” Lyla was asking.

Their mom wasn't listening, picking apart the edges of her sandwich. “How would you guys feel about moving?” she said out of nowhere.

“No!” Lyla shouted, almost shrieking. “I don't wanna leave my friends!”

“Why do you want to move?” Anna asked, honestly shocked. “We've lived here forever. Dad's buried here.”

Their mom flinched. “It's hard being where your dad died,” she said softly. “And besides… it's too tiny here. No excitement. Nowhere to go, and we get snowed in all the time, even in the spring.”

“Molly says Dr. Calvert does the snow,” Lyla said, still pouting. “She says he controls the weather.”

“See? There are all these stories,” her mom said lightly, waving a hand at Lyla’s curly head. “Do you really wanna live in a town where they talk about creepy guys who control the weather and-and scarecrows walking?”

“Yes,” Lyla said stubbornly.

Anna met her mother's eyes. “Do you believe the stories?” she asked. “About Calvert?”

Something flashed over their mom's face before she relaxed, making a silly face. “No,” she scoffed. “Of course not. They're just stories.”

She was lying. Anna could always tell when she was lying. Her mom had always lied about the scarecrows. She'd lied better to the FBI agents, Mulder and Scully, than to Anna. “Mom?” she asked. “Do the scarecrows kill people?”

“Bam!” Lyla shouted, flattening her sandwich with the heel of her hand. No one paid any attention to her.

Her mom faked a little laugh. “Sweetie, of course not.”

“I've seen them walk,” said Anna, almost a challenge. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin in defiance. “And every time they walk, you get called out to find dead tourists a few days later. I've paid attention. I keep track.”

“Anna…” her mom said, warningly.

“They really do walk, Mommy,” Lyla announced. “Anna took me to see last night…”

Anna leapt to her feet in an attempt to silence her sister, but her mom was up before she was. “Anna Rose Haswell,” she said quietly, dangerously. “You listen to me and you listen good. You do not take your sister to see the scarecrows, you do not go period. You do not antagonize Calvert, you do not go near his property. Do you understand me?”

Lyla burst into tears. Anna shrunk back a little; their mom rarely got this mad. “Yeah,” she muttered through clenched teeth.

Her mom's words seemed to catch up with her and she shrunk back, collapsing in on herself again. “I'm going to bed,” she mumbled. “There's a pizza in the freezer, Anna; you guys can make it and watch a movie. This dinner sucks.” She turned and went back, upstairs to her room, her feet pounding the stairs.

Lyla was still crying. Anna handed her a box of Kleenex and went to stick the pizza in the oven. Then she pulled off her sneakers and crept upstairs in her sock feet. She knew how to sneak around by now, she had years of practice. The light was on in her mom's room and behind the closed door, she was talking furiously. Anna crouched and pressed her ear to the crack under the door to hear better. “This has to stop now,” her mom was saying. “You know it does. You can't keep doing this.” She paused, continued: “Because it is fucking immoral, don't you get it? It's wrong, even if what you're looking for isn't. And frankly, it's sick.”

Anna crept down the stairs; she didn't want to hear anymore. She fixed the pizza and sat on the couch with Lyla and watched episode after episode of The Simpsons until she fell asleep there.

She dreamed about her father on the day he died. They were in the river and he was throwing her up in the air and she was laughing. And then she was sitting on the bank, soaking wet, shivering, her lungs and chest aching. Her father was on the ground and her reverend was leaning over him. Her Uncle Jeff scooped her up and carried her away. You don't need to see this, squirt, he said. C’mon, think of something nice. Smile for me.

But there was nothing nice to think of, nothing to smile about. The images changed again: the scarecrows passing in front of her in a line. And suddenly, her father's voice: Anna Banana? She turned around and around looking for him but couldn't find him. She turned back to the line of scarecrows; one of them was standing still, looking right at her. Run, he said.

Anna woke up, gasping for breath. She slid out from behind her sister and padded upstairs. Her mom’s light was still on.

---

Scully stayed in her room all day with the door closed and Mulder didn't try to engage in conversation. He made some small attempt at dinner and took it to her, and she mumbled a thank you without looking at him, head ducked down over her book. (The same bent-up Dennis Lehane that he'd been reading the first morning. Gone Baby Gone, a book that reminded him too much of his own life.) He was planning to sleep on the couch again before he remembered. The scarecrows, the face at the window. Scully, the baby. He couldn't leave them alone in there.

Mulder got up and went into the room. Scully was exiting the bathroom, hair wet and snaking around her shoulders, clad in her pajamas - her own, button down pajamas instead of one of his shirts. “Mulder, I'm not in the mood of a confrontation right now…” she began wearily.

“That's not why I'm here,” he said immediately. “I want to… stay with you tonight.”

She swallowed, looked at the ground, said hollowly, “I need some space right now.”

“Scully, please,” he said, emotions bubbling up in his throat. “Those… things were here last night, and I don't know what they wanted and I don't care if you believe me or not but I'm sure as hell not leaving you and the kid vulnerable.”

“I can take care of myself,” she muttered.

“Well, then let me sleep in here for my own safety,” he snapped, and she flinched. “Scully, look,” he said, trying to iron the anger and fear out of his voice. “I'm an asshole and I'm sorry and I should've told you about my disease the fucking day I found out. I should've kept you with me every goddamn step of the way and I never should've left you when you were sick. And maybe I never should've gotten involved in this case, and that was stupid of me, and if this is related then I don't know what these things want with me. Or with you. But goddamnit, Scully, you are pregnant with my child and believe it or not that does mean something to me.” He stepped closer to her, reached out to touch her shoulder, continued in a softer voice: “So please. Please let me sleep in here until we can get out of this weird fucking town.”

Scully bit her lip, nodded, turned away from him and slid under the covers. She was still positioning herself when he climbed in beside her, on the other side of the mattress from him. He crawled across the mattress and kissed her cheekbone. “I'm sorry, Scully,” he whispered.

In response, she reached up and switched off the light. “Good night, Mulder.”

---

Mulder woke up at the sound of the door creaking open when he was sure he'd locked it. Just your imagination, he thought for a wild second. And then he heard it: the faint scratching of straw on the floorboards.

He took a frightened, uneven breath and scrambled across the mattress to Scully, to shield her or something like that. And then he heard the raspy voice that he'd heard in his dream the night before: “Agent Muuuuulder,” a strange and off-kilter singsong.

Scully stirred beside him, opened her eyes and started in a questioning voice, “Mul-”

He put a hand over her mouth and she jolted, her hand shooting to his wrist before she saw who it was. Her face contorted, a question; he held a finger to his lips, mouthed, It's here. Her eyes widened, but she nodded silently as he moved his hand away.

Scrape, scrape. “Come on out, Agent Mulder,” the voice said in that same eerie singsong. “You can't escape.”

Scully had kept ahold of his wrist; she motioned him towards the closet in the corner. They got off of the bed carefully, feet hitting the carpet, and moved together into the closet. The scraping moved towards the door to their room. Scully tugged him hard into the closet and pulled the door most of the way closed - not letting it close all the way to avoid the click, he assumed. She let go of his wrist and wrapped an arm around his waist, leaning hard into him. Her right hand was pressed against her stomach. He moved his left hand down to her stomach, on top of her hand. The baby kicked; Mulder couldn't tell whether it was out of fright or excitement. Don't worry, kid, he thought. I'll protect you.

Outside the closet, the bedroom door slowly creaked open. Scully pressed her face into his shoulder, her hand wrapping tighter around the baby. Please, God, Mulder thought furiously, momentarily forgetting he didn't believe in God.

The strange, scraping footsteps continued across the room, the rug, the floorboards. There were multiple scarecrows; Mulder mentally took stock. His eyes were on the crack where the door hadn't closed all the way, he could see part of a bulky scarecrow arm through it. The baby was kicking furiously under their hands. Scully breathed shakily into his shoulder. Don't fucking hurt my family, he wanted to yell but he was paralyzed and he had to protect Scully and the kid. At all costs.

Silence for a moment, and it was the scariest thing yet. And then the voices, all chorusing together: “He is different. He has the Mark of Death.” Mulder tried to calculate how many there were, but it was impossible. At least a dozen, probably more. Around the number of the victims. He swallowed raspily, pulling Scully further into him with his right arm.

The strange, shuffling footsteps started again, the rasp of straw over wood. Mulder had his eyes closed but he made the mistake of opening them and looking at the crack in the door. A raggedy scarecrow was standing directly in front of the crack, and it seemed to be smiling at him.

Mulder bit down on his lip to keep from crying out so hard that he felt blood, hands balling into fists around the silk of Scully's pajama shirt. His eyes crashed shut and when they opened, the scarecrow was gone. He held his breath; even breathing seemed dangerous in the moment, a true state of irony.

He felt a tug on his free hand, which had been pressed into Scully's shoulder; she was motioning him backwards into the closet. He crept back with her until they hit the back wall, and she braced her back against it and slid to the ground. He slid down beside her, his hand fumbling until it found her abdomen again. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head; she kissed the fingers of his other hand, gripping them tightly. They waited.

He wasn't sure how long they sat there in the dark, a small crack of moonlight spilling in from the door. Long after the scraping had stopped, at least. He finally mumbled, “I think I need to see if they're gone,” into her hair.

She nodded, soft hair brushing against his chin. “Mulder, I'm…” she started, some kind of apology or plea.

“Shh,” he whispered. “It's okay. Where's your gun?”

“Bedside table drawer.” He nodded and started to get up, but her palm pressed against his arm. “I'm coming with you,” she said firmly.

Any other time he might’ve agreed, but not this time. “Scully, you can't. You have to take care of the baby.”

He expected an argument, but she was just quiet for a minute before nodding. Their dynamic had shifted now that there was someone else to protect. He kissed her cheek, her nose, her forehead before getting to his feet and heading for the door. “Be careful,” Scully growled behind him in a voice he wouldn't dare disobey.

Mulder left the closet quickly, shutting the door behind him. The floor was littered with prints, bloody prints that resembled what he assumed straw would look like if it were pressed to the floor. Proof they hadn't imagined it, that it hadn't been another shared hallucination in North Carolina, Hell State of Evil Mushrooms and Lung-Invading Tobacco Beatles. He went for the gun, gripping it in both hands, and surveyed the cabin the way they'd taught him at Quantico. Living room and kitchen clear, bathroom clear, second bedroom and closets clear, except for the strange tracks that he assumed would be the footprints of a moving scarecrow. He checked outside: only the snow and the wind and the stars. The tracks led away from the house, up the road. They were safe for now, it seemed. (But for how long? the traitorous voice in his head taunted.)

Mulder didn't let go of the gun as he went aside. “Scully, it's me,” he whispered as he opened the closet. “We're safe, they're gone.”

She breathed a sigh of relief as he went to help her up, wrapped her arms around him in a brief, awkward, rib-crushing hug before pulling away and asking, “What was that?”

“I can only assume that those were the scarecrows from Calvert’s fence,” said Mulder. Her hair was tangled, and he smoothed it back with one hand. “And also possibly the spirits of his victims using the scarecrows as a vessel.”

Scully covered her face with her hand and laughed bitterly into her palm. “I think we've descended into the land of the truly ridiculous,” she muttered.

“And bad B-material. Don't forget bad B-material.” He squeezed her shoulder.

“Those… things… they came for you, Mulder,” she breathed. “They said you had something… some mark…”

“The mark of death or whatever,” Mulder said uneasily. They were both grimacing in the dark of the closet.

“You're a target,” Scully whispered. “They lured you here, somehow… the blackout…”

He swallowed uneasily. “I think it's safe to say that we need to get out of here, Scully.”

She nodded, her hand curled around his arm. “As soon as it gets light. We'll go as soon as it gets light.”

Neither of them could go back to sleep; neither of them wanted to. They sat together on the couch, wrapped in blankets; Scully rested her head on his shoulder, Mulder held her gun on his lap, and neither of them slept.

---

They ate, quickly, in the morning, shoveling down scrambled eggs without saying much to each other. Mulder insisted on packing the car, quickly and trying not to slip too much on the snow. They didn't bother with the food. Mulder helped her to the car and she grumbled a little about it but didn't argue. He climbed into the driver's seat.

“Mulder,” Scully said, and when he turned to face her she leaned across the dashboard and kissed him, fierce, mouth soft and hot under his.

“It'll be okay,” he whispered against her. “We're going to make it.”

“I know,” she said, kissed him again, squeezing his arm before she settled back against the seat.

Mulder shifted the car into gear and pulled away from their parking spot.

#i wrote this #xf fanfic

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ghostbustermelanieking · 8 years ago

Text

the truth we both know (3/3)

emily au (season 9)

one /// two

warning for events of the truth.

They don't win.

Scully visits Mulder's cell right before the trial to see him in private for the first time in months. She tries to bring Emily, but they refuse to let a seven-year-old see a purported murderer so she goes on her own and holds him on the dirty floor and fills him in on the past eleven months (only the happy parts; she leaves out the kidnapping and the fear and the blood on the floor). She testifies at his trial and tries to stay for the rest of it, but they won't let her.

When she gets out of the prison, she finds several messages on her cell phone. Emily's school has called her because Emily's gotten into a fight.

The principal gives Scully a weary, irritable look when she comes into the office; she's resented her ever since she took Emily out of school for a month for no clear reason. Emily slumps in the chair next to the boy she punched and his mother, nursing a black eye and bruised knuckles. The boy is holding an ice pack to his swelled bloody nose and the mother is ranting about the possibility of it being broken. If Mulder were here, he'd make a joke about Emily inheriting her fighting skills from her mother. Scully apologizes to the mother and the principal, makes Emily apologize to the kid, and shuffles her out of the office. She has to serve a three-day suspension that Scully plans to make permanent, more or less; if things go the way she hopes, Mulder will be found not guilty and they'll be leaving Virginia soon.

“Hey, hold up,” she says sternly outside when Emily tries to go straight to the car. She motions for Emily to sit down on a bench outside the playground and kneels in front of her. “What were you thinking, Emily? You know better.”

“You punch people all the time,” Emily mutters, poking the empty space where she lost her first tooth with her tongue.

She's a little stunned. “Only when they're dangerous or hurting me or someone I love. And the principal told me that Jason punched you after you punched him, so it’s definitely not the same thing.”

Emily pokes her bruise. “It hurts,” she says in a small voice.

“We'll put some ice on it when we get home, but consider it your temporary punishment. Now, do you want to tell me why you punched someone? Did he say something mean?”

Emily’s lip quivers, just a little bit. “Yes.”

“What did he say?”

She rubs her purple-black knuckles. After she's been mad for an appropriate amount of time, Scully is going to teach her how to punch; with the lives they've led thus far, it seems like an important skill. “His dad is a soldier who's guarding Mulder at the prison,” she says finally, worrying her lower lip between her small teeth. “He said…” She sniffles. “When he found out Mulder was my dad, he told me that they were gonna kill him because that's what happens to people who kill soldiers.”

Scully understands in an instant. “Sweetie, c’mere.” Emily hugs her stiffly, probably indicating that she is still mad. Scully hugs her back tightly, rubbing her back.

“Did Mulder really kill someone?” Emily mumbles into her shoulder. “A soldier?”

Scully bites her lip. “No, sweetie,” she says. You can't kill a man who won't die, Mulder had said. “They think he did, but he didn't. You don't ever have to worry about that, okay? Your father is a good man.”

Emily sniffles. “Then why do they wanna kill him?”

“Listen,” she says softly when she pulls back, tipping Emily's chin up to look her in the eye. “That was really mean of Jason to say, but you can't just punch other kids because they say something mean to you. You can punch people, but only if they're physically hurting you or someone you love. That's when you punch and kick and scream. All the rules go out the window then.”

Emily wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “Like Will. I'll use my fists to protect Will.”

“Screaming is the most important. Remember that.” Scully hugs her again before standing and heading to the car. Emily trails after her, staring at the ground. She'll stop and get Emily some ice at a gas station; home is too far away. “No books for the rest of today or tomorrow, okay?”

Emily nods. She looks up nervously. “Mom, Jason was lying, wasn't he? They're not going to kill Mulder, are they?”

What kind of person tells their first-grade kid that? she thinks, and then remembers she is in no place to judge, since she brought her kids into this shitty life they lead. “Yes,” she says, and she's not lying. “He was.”

She'll make sure he doesn't die. They can't take that, not when their little family is already crumbled at the seams. Emily won't look her in the eyes anymore if Mulder dies, will resent her for a long time, and William will grow up with questions about who his father was, why there are no pictures of them together. Maybe he'll resent her, too. She can't take it; she's loved Mulder catastrophically for too long now. This is one of the things she can't save him from.

She visits Mulder in his cell that is too dark for time to matter the next morning before the next session of his trial. The first thing he says is, “I know what you want and I can't give it to you,” and she's immediately filled with some unexplainable rage about the fact that he won't confide in her. Still, maybe he'll save himself. If not for her, then for their kids.

“Make them a deal, Mulder. Guilty on a lesser charge. Maybe they'll go for it and they'll let you walk out of here,” she says tightly, balling her hands into fists in her blazer pockets. She's been dressing like she's still an FBI agent (and not a practically single mother who resigned to protect her kids and carries a gun everywhere over her desperately un-FBI jeans) like it'll make the guards, the committee judging whether or not Mulder should live, take her seriously.

“I'd rather die, Scully,” he says, and it's like a slap in the face.

“How can you say that?” she snarls. “How can you say that, Mulder? To me. When we have kids together who are waiting for their father to come home! Goddamnit, all you could talk about was not wanting to leave them, and now you can't save your life for them? Fuck you.”

He flinches, to his credit, looking down at his white prison shoes. But he continues, quietly: “Because this is greater than you or me. This is about everything we worked for for nine years. The truth that we both sacrificed so much to uncover and to expose.”

She kneels to meet his eyes. “Well, then, expose it, Mulder!” she snaps. “Take the stand. Whatever it is that you're withholding take the stand and hit them full force.”

“I can't.”

Fuck his martyr complex, his self-sacrificing personality. He can't do this anymore, not with everything at stake. “Why?” she says tightly.

“I just can't.”

Something twists in her stomach. “You say this is greater than us, and maybe it is, but this is us fighting this fight, Mulder, not you,” she says in a dangerously quiet voice. “It's you and me. That's what I'm fighting for, Mulder. You and me. Our family.” She bites her lip to keep more, nastier things from floating to the surface: you should've backed out a long time ago if you didn't want this, you bastard, no one made you stay and love me and my daughter but you did and now we can't do this without you. You selfish fuck.

Mulder just shakes his head. He won't look her in the eye.

She leaves. She feels slightly sick.

///

Gibson Praise testifies at Mulder's trial and Doggett brings him to stay at Scully's after. Years ago, she'd looked at Gibson and thought of Emily, and now he stands in front of her, a gangly teenager, while Emily stares warily at him over William's head. “I guess you heard the trial didn't go well today,” Doggett says.

Scully curses under her breath, and then remembers Gibson. “Sorry.”

“I've heard worse,” Gibson says mildly. Living with Mulder for months, she's not surprised.

She nods, pressing her sharp fingernails into the palm of her hand. Part of her wants to yell at him for hiding her emails. “Come on in, make yourself at home,” she says instead. “We have cable TV. I don't guess you got a lot of that where you were.”

He looks her seriously in the eye. “Mulder's scared,” he says. “He's afraid of not coming home to you. He wanted me to tell you that.”

She nods and says nothing. She doesn't trust whatever she'd say. Gibson nods back and enters the apartment awkwardly, going to join Emily and William in the living room.

At the kitchen table, Doggett gives her a recap of what happened in the day’s portion of the trial. “He's doomed, isn't he,” Scully says softly. “There's no way to save him.”

Silence for a moment. Behind them, she can hear Gibson and Emily argue over the TV. “Why do we have to watch this?” Gibson asks, and Emily responds, “I like it, and it's my house, anyway.” Their voices along with the white noise of the TV provide a quiet lull in the background of the treacherous thoughts in Scully’s head.

“I don't believe that, Dana,” Doggett says. “Monica and I are going to testify to everything we know. Mulder still has a few good chances. We can still save him.”

She's so tired she can barely think straight. She rests her head on the table and says nothing.

///

The next night, Doggett babysits the kids while Scully and Monica go to autopsy Knowle Rohrer. She gets the evidence, brings it to the trial, but it's dismissed and she's dragged out. She thinks whatever hope she had left stays behind. She thinks Mulder could use it.

She goes home and waits for the verdict. Doggett and Monica come with her. Emily and Gibson have formed something of a tense, strange friendship, and are playing cards at the kitchen table, punctuated by frequent bickering. Monica plays with William on the floor, stacking lettered blocks into nonsense words. Doggett paces the tiled kitchen floor uneasily. Scully sits motionless on the couch. She blames temporary paralysis. All she can picture is worse-case-scenarios. It's a learned and hated habit.

The phone rings, a shrill knife cutting through the noise of the room. Emily goes back to what she’s doing easily; Scully hasn’t told her what they’re waiting for. Monica looks down back at William. Doggett picks up the phone. Scully stares at him, unable to move. Behind them, Emily says, “Raise you five cents,” but she can feel Gibson watching them. Unlike Emily, he knows what's going on. Like Emily, he cares about Mulder.

“Yeah,” Doggett says, gruffly. Regrettably. Pauses, says, “I'll tell her.” He hangs up. The only sounds are Emily shuffling the card and William gurgling on the ground, making nonsensical sounds. Doggett doesn't look at her.

“Who was it?”

“Skinner,” Doggett says, and stops.

“Agent Doggett?” God, her voice sounds unfamiliar to her. Who is she, now? Who is she? What can she do?

Finally, he turns to look at her. “Death by lethal injection.” He says it quietly, like that'll change something. Soften the blow, the goddamn truck running her down.

Monica looks up in horror. Oblivious, William grabs for a block - M - with his chubby fingers. Oblivious, Emily yells, “You're totally cheating, you read my mind!” at Gibson. Scully doesn't feel real.

She disintegrates a little, muffling her sobs with her palm. Monica reaches for her, but she stumbles to her feet and towards the bathroom. She doesn’t want Emily to see her cry. She slams the door behind her, grabbing a towel and pressing her face into it.

It’s finally silent outside. “What happened?” Emily asks, stunned. Scully pushes the cotton hard against her face. God, she can’t tell her, she can’t comfort her when she herself is falling apart. How the hell is she supposed to do this.

There’s a polite tap at the door. “Dana?” Monica asks softly. “It’s me. Please let me in.”

Scully ignores her. She feels like she’s going to collapse. She slides down the wall, leaning heavily against the wallpaper Mulder had said he hated the day they’d looked at the apartment (she’d said, That’s not exactly a deal breaker, Mulder, and squeezed his hand when he pouted). She sits there for a long time.

Outside, she can hear Monica sending Emily to bed. “What’s wrong with Mom?” she asks, sounding small, and Monica tells her that it’ll be okay. But she doesn’t tell her what’s wrong.

Scully sits crumpled on the floor, twisting the towel between her fingers. Her stomach hurts. She wonders how hard it is to break someone out of federal prison.

She stands, finally, on shaky legs and stumbles out of the bathroom into the living room. Doggett, Monica, and Gibson’s heads all snap up in unison. “Dana?” Doggett asks tentatively.

Scully sniffs, wiping her cheek. “I’m not giving up,” she says. “It’s not over until he’s gone. And I’m not letting him go.” Doggett and Monica look a little dumbfounded, but she continues. “I’ve had bags packed for the kids since he left. I’m ready to leave.”

///

He’d known the verdict was coming, but that hadn’t made it any easier to hear. His stomach had twisted like he was going to vomit, and all he could think about was how he was never going to see Scully and Emily and William again. He hadn’t even known his son for more than three days before he’d left; what kind of father is he? He fucked up and now he’s going to die and there’s no way to save them from what he knows is coming in ten years. He can’t save anyone.

He’s going to tell her, he decides, because he knows she will come. Just yank her up against him and hold her and say, The world’s going to end, Scully, and you and the kids need to be ready. December 21, 2012. Don’t stop fighting. He’s going to tell her because even if they are listening, he has nothing to lose: they are going to kill him. He wants to tell her, but as soon as he sees her slumping form, the words dry up in his mouth. He is a goddamn coward and always had been, but oh god, how can he tell her?

Scully doesn’t say much when she comes. He isn’t sure if it’s because she’s mad or speechless. He crushes her against him, whispers, “I’m sorry” into her hair repeatedly and run-together until all of his words sound like nonsense, gibberish. He thinks he cries. She holds him on the floor of his dark cell and rocks him back and forth. He holds her, tries to memorize her, inhales her shampoo scent. He whispers apologies into her neck and she runs her hand up and down his back.

There’s a sharp rap on the door. He kisses her before they stand up, long and fierce. “I love you,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers back. “It’s okay.” She thumbs his wrist, kisses his forehead gently. She presses a sheath of photos of Emily and William paper-clipped together into his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she says again, in a way he can’t misunderstand. She smooths his hair back. “I love you.”

///

She sat Emily down, the night before, and asked her what she’d be willing to do so they could be a family again. “Anything,” Emily said immediately, fixing the barrette in her hair.

“Would you leave Virginia? Would you leave this apartment and never come back to it? Never go to school here again?”

Emily chewed her peeling-pink-nail-polish nail nervously. “Yeah,” she said finally. “Like… moving away?”

“Sort of,” Scully said. “And you’re telling me you’d be okay with that.”

She nodded. “I want things to be like they were before,” she said, and that was enough for Scully.

She’s packed bags for the kids - changes of clothes, toiletries, some of William’s toys and a pacifier, some of Emily’s favorite books - and has them waiting by the door the day of Mulder’s jail break. Monica’s agreed to take them over to her mother’s for the night. (Scully had thanked her for everything she’s done for them - “Words aren’t enough, Monica, I swear…” - and Monica had given her a hug and said she was glad to have a chance to say goodbye to the kids, and glad to help her in whatever way she could, she’d been a good friend.) For herself, she packs the bare minimum of what she needs: clothes, toiletries, her father's copy of Moby Dick. She wraps her gun in a t-shirt and hides it under her folded jeans. She takes all of the keys off of her key ring, but keeps the Apollo 11 chain on. She straps her holster on under her coat and slips Mulder's gun into it.

Emily goes to school for the first day since her suspension and Gibson settles in front of the TV, eating Cheetos and watching a marathon of The Simpsons. Scully spends the day with William. They sit together on the floor of his room, the one Mulder and Emily had painted. “I want you to remember this,” she tells him, though she knows he won't.

“Ga,” William replies, grabbing a handful of her hair. She assumes this is some sort of sound of agreement.

When Emily gets home, she gets a box of graham crackers and eats at the counter. Damn, they'll have to do something about the food. Scully shakes some fish food into the tank and goes to sit across from Emily. “Listen, sweetie, you and Will are gonna go to your grandmother's for a night or two, okay?”

Emily dunks a graham cracker in her glass of milk. “What about you?” she asks, eyeing the suitcases by the door.

Scully shakes her head. “No, I'm not going. I'm going to be… getting things together so we can leave.”

Emily pokes the empty space of her new tooth, crumbling the graham cracker between her fingers. “Is it dangerous?” she asks, hushed.

Scully shakes her head.

She smushes the cracker beneath her fingers. “I don't believe you.”

“Em, honey…” Scully rounds the counter and pushes back her hair.

She sniffles. “I'm sorry I've been mad at you, Mom. Please let me come with you.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She pulls her daughter into her embrace, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “We're not leaving you behind. We're going to come get you as soon as it's safe, me and Mulder. We're going to be together again, like we were before. It's gonna be fine.”

Emily presses her face into Scully's shoulder, tears soaking into her coat. “I'm sorry,” she hiccups. “I love you, I don't hate you. Even though I said it that one time and you didn't hear me, I didn't mean it.”

She strokes Emily's hair soothingly, rocking her back and forth. “It's okay,” she whispers. “I know, sweetie, I know. It's all going to be better soon.”

Emily sniffles again. Scully holds her until there's a knock at the door. “I think that's Aunt Monica,” she says, tucking a strand of hair back. “Why don't you go let her in?” Emily nods, wiping her cheeks and jumping off the stool to go open the door.

Scully goes to get William, lifting him up out of the crib. “Mamamama,” he babbles.

She kisses his head. “It's okay.”

She carries William down to Monica's car and straps him in, kissing him first and then Emily. “I love you both,” she says. “I want you to spend lots of time with Grandma tonight because it'll be a while before we see her again, okay?”

Emily nods her consent, chewing her thumbnail. “Are we ever coming back here?”

Scully tells them the truth: “No.”

Emily nods seriously and leans up to kiss her on the cheek. “See you tomorrow, Mom. I love you. Tell Mulder I love him, too.”

Gibson is waiting in the kitchen when she comes up. “You're a good mom,” he says, not turning to look at her. He's eating a messily-made sandwich and looking at the fridge. She's pinned up pictures of the kids and Emily's scribbly drawings and the picture of her and Mulder at a crime scene that she'd collected from his office the day after he left and mailed in his resignation.

“Thank you,” Scully says, dropping her house key on the counter. Although I’m not, she adds silently, temporarily forgetting the mind reading thing.

Gibson turns to look at her. “My parents wanted me to be a perfect little chess prodigy,” he says. “You know why you've never met them? Because they didn't stay around when things got tough. I haven't talked to them in years because I've been trying to protect them. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Why didn’t they ever come looking for me after all that brain surgery bullshit? Trust me, you're a better mother than that.”

Scully nods awkwardly, swallowing. This kid has been through the wringer, she’s seen it. “Gibson, where are you going when this is over?”

He shrugs, straightening his glasses. “Back to New Mexico, I guess. Or wherever Monica and John decide to take me. One of them mentioned witness protection or whatever.”

“Would you want to… come with us?”

Gibson shakes his head instantly. “I like Mulder and all, but living with him for longer? No thanks, he’s a terrible roommate.” He takes another large bite of his sandwich, mayonnaise splatting on the floor, and turns back to the fridge. “You need to teach that kid how to play cards, though. She's good, but not great. She needs a better poker face.”

Out of some need for protection, Scully takes Gibson with her to go pick up the new car. She pays in cash for the van, a conspicuous gray: big enough to house a family temporarily, she thinks. “I love the shadiness of all this,” Gibson says, eating Chicken McNuggets with his feet up on the dashboard. “FBI agent prepares to go on the run.”

Scully flips on her turn signal, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. (The upcoming Teenage Years will be interesting in her family, she senses, especially with the Mulder genes as a factor.) “Former FBI agent, thank you very much.”

As darkness falls, she calls her mother to check on the kids, packs the car, leaves a Sticky Note on the fish tank that says, Skinner: Mulder wanted you to have the fish. Thank you for everything you've done, sir. We owe you our lives. She pulls her ID and credit cards out of her wallet (having already closed her bank accounts) and cuts them into pieces, Friends style, before flushing them down the toilet. She replaces her ID with several fake ones that the Gunmen made and a new debit card under a fake name that she transferred Mulder's money to. She takes the picture of her and Mulder and a picture of Emily and William on Christmas off of the fridge and folds them before tucking them in her wallet. Gibson hovers anxiously in the doorway, watching her.

When it’s time to leave, Scully lingers in the threshold of the apartment. She's barely been in it a year and a half; she can still see it the way it was on the day they moved in, stacks of cardboard boxes that Emily ducked behind, Mulder's couch shoved haphazardly in the living room, and the way he pushed her up against the counter before he kissed her. Her fingers curl around the door.

“Scully?” Gibson asks, his voice cracking awkwardly.

She turns, holding onto her bag tightly. “Okay,” she says. “Let's go.”

She drives them down a dusty road near the prison. They get out of the car and wait.

Almost fifteen agonizing minutes later, a car approaches and Mulder gets out, nearly running towards her. Something behind her ribs unclenches with relief, then clenches again when she sees who gets out of the car with Skinner and Doggett: Kersh. Oh, God, we're screwed, she thinks as she hands Mulder a jacket. It's all over now. She hopes her mom will take good care of William and Emily. “Mulder?” she asks, voice tight with terror.

“You've got to move out,” Kersh says.

“What's he doing?” she asks, reaching for his hand. Their fingers brush, and his curl around hers.

“What I should've done from the start,” Kersh replies. Scully blinks, but she clutches at Mulder's hand and nods.

Mulder nods, too, looking around at the cluster of people on the road. “None of you will be safe now,” he says.

“You let us worry about that,” Doggett says.

“Good luck,” Monica adds.

Skinner says nothing, but jerks his head in a way that clearly says go.

Scully moves away from Mulder to hug Monica tightly. Behind her, Mulder claps Gibson on the shoulder. Then they turn and climb into the car, Scully in the driver's seat and Mulder beside her, buttoning the jacket closed over the prison uniform. When she starts the car, he touches her arm gently. “Scully,” he says softly. When she turns to look at him, he kisses her messily, hands curling in her hair. “Thank you,” he whispers against her lips.

She smiles into his mouth, cupping the back of his neck briefly before turning to face front. “We have to go. There's some clothes in the backseat, crawl back there and change when we get far enough away.”

He places his hand over hers on the gear shift. “What about the kids?”

“My mom has them. We're meeting her in a rest area in Maryland at two in the morning.”

He strokes the back of her hand. “Scully, if they catch us…” he says quietly.

“They won't,” she says firmly. “This was our plan all along. We're going to be fine.”

As a response, he kisses her on the cheek, right below her eye.

///

Once they reach Maryland, Scully pulls off into the woods and they curl around each other on a quilt she'd spread in out the back of the van. After setting a battery-powered alarm clock, Scully falls asleep for a few hours with her head on his shoulder and her hand pressed to his chest. Mulder can't sleep. He holds her close and watches the stars; he'd missed them in the prison. They looked closer in New Mexico; maybe he should take his family there.

///

Maggie waits with the kids outside a blue-white lit rest area. Mulder's heart seizes a little when they park in the nearly abandoned parking lot; he's seen the pictures, but how the hell did they get so big? William's propped on Maggie’s hip, playing with her cross that matches the one Scully gave Emily. Emily is leaning into her side, a musty jacket that must've belonged to Scully as a kid buttoned over her pajamas. “She's so tall,” he whispers to Scully. “When did she get so tall?”

They climb out of the car and Emily's eyes widen. She barrels towards him, practically shouting, “Mulder!” He manages to catch her clumsily, stumbling back against the car, but he hugs her back gratefully. “I missed you,” Emily sniffles into his shirt.

“I missed you, too.” He kisses her temple.

“Are you okay? Where did you go?”

“It's a long story, baby, but I'm okay, I promise.” He hugs her again before lowering her to the ground.

Scully's approaching with William, whispering quietly to him. “Will, here, look,” she whispers, handing him to Mulder. “It's your dad.”

Mulder holds the baby gingerly, afraid he'll move wrong and this will all melt away. William babbles, wriggling in his arms and pulling at his hair. “Hey, buddy,” he whispers.

“Isn't he cute?” Emily whispers, still clinging to his side. “He can already stand up, it's so cool!”

He blinks back the burn of tears, kissing the top of William's wispy head. “He looks just like your mother.”

Emily shakes her head, braids hitting her shoulders rhythmically. “Mom says he looks like you.”

Scully is hugging her mother and she motions Mulder and Emily over to say goodbye. Maggie takes turns kissing her daughter and grandchildren. She even kisses Mulder on the cheek, which he's slightly surprised at; he's never been able to deduce whether or not she likes him, and he can't imagine she's too fond of him now, what with the fact that he's taking away her family. “Take care of them, Fox,” she says sternly, and he promises that he will.

After Maggie leaves, driving away with tears shining on her cheek in the streetlight, the kids climb into the car. Scully straps William into his car seat while Mulder helps Emily. They're both exhausted; William falls asleep almost instantly, and Emily's drowsy, head lolling against the back of the heat. “So where are we going now?” she asks sleepily.

“Anywhere we want, Em,” Mulder says from the driver's seat. Scully grins and grabs his right hand in both of hers. “Anywhere we want.”

///

They drive for hours, shifting between drivers. Emily sleeps for hours, the seat pressing creases in her cheek. They eat breakfast at ten in the morning at another rest area, sitting on top of picnic tables. Emily helps William stand up in the grass, holding onto his small hands.

Mulder tries to take care of William as much as possible, but his son barely seems to know him. At one point, he reaches for Scully from Mulder's arms. Mulder hands him over, trying not to be hurt - he has been gone for nearly a year, hasn’t he? “It's okay, sweetie,” Scully soothes, trying to get Mulder to take him back but he shakes his head. Emily hugs him, burying her face in his side.

They drive until they hit Missouri. Scully finds a conspicuous hotel and rents a room. Mulder and the kids settle in the room while Scully runs out to get dinner and hair dye. Emily plays with William on the bed while Mulder sets up the portable crib. When he finally gets it finished, he sighs wearily and comes to sit beside the kids on the bed. “Here, Mulder, hold Will,” Emily says.

Mulder lifts the baby gingerly and sets him on his lap. William looks somewhat suspicious, but he doesn’t wiggle away.

“Did you see anything cool?” Emily asks, swinging her legs, her feet bumping the side of the bed. “Where’d you go?”

“Not really.” William grabs Mulder’s finger and he smiles a little. “I was in New Mexico. It was boring.”

“Really?”

“Really. Although I have some pictures you might like.” He jiggles his finger a little and Will yanks it to his mouth. “What about you? What's with the black eye?” (He'd asked Scully about it after she'd felt asleep, stomach twisting with nervousness - had someone hurt her when they tried to take William? - and she'd said quickly, “Oh no, it's okay, just a fight at school, it’s nothing”, and relief had washed through him.)

“I helped Mom with William,” she says. “And the black eye is from a stupid fight. I punched a guy, and he punched me back.”

William sinks his tiny teeth into Mulder’s finger and he tries to jar it loose. “Why did you punch him?”

“His dad was guarding you, and he said his dad said they were gonna kill you.” Emily looks down at her dirty sneakers.

Mulder puts a hand on her small back. “Hey, it's okay, Em. I’m fine.”

She peels back the Velcro on her shoes. “I know.”

“And you shouldn't punch people,” he tries. He pulls his finger free and William scowls at him, grabbing it back; his glare is identical to Scully’s.

“I know, Mom told me. Only if someone's in danger. She had to pay for Jason’s nose. Or maybe not now that we're gone.” Emily grins evilly.

He's strangely proud, but he obviously can't tell her that. “Come on, kiddo, you know better,” he scolds, tousling her hair.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Emily makes a face. “Mom already lectured me. And then she taught me how to punch in case someone tried to hurt me.”

It might be funny if the situation wasn't so dire, if she hadn't already been in danger or if she won't be in the future. Mulder smooths her rumpled hair from where he mussed it and says nothing.

“You’re not gonna leave again, are you?” She rests her head against his arm.

“No,” Mulder says, sure of himself for once. “Never again. I promise.”

“Good.”

William is restless, grabbing for Mulder's finger again. Emily points. “Look, he’s saying your name!”

Mulder looks. William is making soft sounds (muh muh muh), but none of any particular dialect. “He’s just making noise, sweetie,” he explains. “Although I’m sure he’ll be talking sooner or later.”

“No,” she insists firmly, in a very Scully tone. “He’s trying to say your name. He tries to say mine all the time.”

Mulder studies William. He supposes that his grunts could somewhat be mistaken for as the first syllable as “Mulder”. But then again, he’d always expected William to call him “Dad”. Emily calls him Mulder, though. Maybe it’s just natural that William would, too. He's not sure how he feels about it; he's been wanting to be called Dad for a long time now.

“Very smart of him,” he says approvingly. “You want to hold him?”

“Sure.” Emily takes William like she has been doing it for years. Mulder feels some small pang of jealousy that a seven-year-old, sister or not, has more experience holding his son than he does.

The door scrapes open, and Mulder moves to shield the kids before he sees the bright color of Scully's hair. “It’sjustme,” she says quickly, free hand rustling plastic bags raised in the air. The other hand is balancing a pizza box. “I brought some dinner.”

“Mom!” Emily moves towards her, arms raised, and hugs her around the waist. William holds his arm up towards his mother, so once she's set the pizza box down, Mulder passes him over before wrapping his arms around both of them. Will tenses at first, but when Scully leans into the embrace, he relaxes against his father's chest.

“Hi,” Scully says, resting her head on his shoulder. She sounds happier than he's heard her sound since before he left the apartment to meet with Kersh.

He kisses her forehead, reaching down with one hand to tousle Emily's hair again. Emily giggles. William grabs a handful of his t-shirt for traction and holds tight. “Hi.”

///

They eat pizza cross-legged on the bed and watch reruns of Full House, which Emily loves and Mulder feels a bitter resentment towards because he can't stand how happy every damn character on that show is. Still, it's nice. Scully leans against him on their bed with William nestled in her lap. The baby doesn't seem nearly as suspicious of Mulder as before - comfortable, maybe. He amuses himself with Scully's car keys, gnawing on the Apollo 11 keychain. Mulder pretends to grab his nose at one point and Will grabs his finger with both hands.

Later, Scully disappears into the bathroom to dye her hair brown. “Most people know me with short hair, so I'm going to grow it out as long as possible,” she tells Mulder. (She's not wrong - they're both going shaggier, he's working on his beard.) She cuts Emily's hair in the motel bathroom - to her chin, shorter than it's been the entire time Mulder has known her. When they exit the bathroom, they look like different people. But their smiles are the same. “You look beautiful,” he tells them and means it.

While they're in the bathroom, Mulder plays with William on the bed. Will lies on his stomach on the bed, rolling a toy truck from McDonald's back and forth across the comforter. Mulder watches him quietly. He reaches to stroke his downy head.

“Listen, buddy,” he says quietly after a minute. “I know I haven't been a very good father so far. Hell, I've messed up a lot with your sister - I left her and your mom to try and save them, and your mom didn't want to forgive me for that one, and that was only a couple days. I left you for a lot longer, and I left them too. And there's no excuses and a million excuses and I know I fucked up.” He clears his throat, eyes darting towards the bathroom door. “Sorry. Screwed up.”

“Fuuuu,” William says, rapping the truck against his forearm.

“You hush,” he says, trying to be stern. “Anyway… William, this is my attempt at apologizing. And reassuring you that I thought about you and Emily and Scully - or Mommy to you - every damn day, and felt guilty about leaving you both. And promising you that I'm never going to leave again, not ever.” He feels awkward, desperately awkward around his eleven-month-old son. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. He waits.

William regards him curiously. “Muh,” he says finally, grabbing the doll - the one Mulder had dug out of the attic and given to Scully - and presenting it to him proudly.

“Yeah, something like that,” Mulder decides, leaning down to kiss the top of William's head. The boy doesn't squirm away.

“Very good speech,” Scully says from behind him, leaning down to kiss William as well. Her chemically-scented new brown hair brushes his face when she bends to scoop William up. The baby looks startled at first - probably a reaction to the hair change - but when he sees who it is, he snuggles into her gratefully. Scully kisses Mulder's cheek before taking William towards the crib in the corner. William holds onto the doll with one fist.

“I meant it,” Mulder says. He can't stop watching them. “I thought you should know.”

She doesn't look back, but he can see her smiling. “I know.”

Emily climbs up beside him on the bed, paperback in hand. “Mom was reading Because of Winn-Dixie before we left,” she says. “Can you read some?”

After Emily's been read to and tucked in, after Will has been sung to sleep by a tone-deaf Scully (“He likes it,” she says to Mulder, scowling at his cracks) and tucked in, Mulder and Scully crawl into bed together. She turns towards him, their arms wrapped around the other's shoulders and their foreheads nearly touching. “I missed you,” she whispers. “Thank you for coming with us.”

He kisses her nose. “Are you scared?” he whispers. If they're caught, the two of them will likely be killed and there will be no one protecting Emily and William from the Syndicate’s grasp. And then there's the other thing, what he hasn't told her and doesn't know if he can; how can they save the world, two federal fugitives with two kids under the age of ten? How can he tell her and not have Emily find out? It'll scare her, scare them both. But what if there's something they can do? He thinks about telling her. He thinks, What if there's nothing we can do? Ten years left.

“Right now…” She yawns, resting her forehead against his. “Right now, Mulder, in this moment, I'm the least scared I've ever been.”

It's almost definitely not true but they're safe, for now. Their kids are safe. They have each other. For now, that seems like enough.

Mulder nuzzles the top of her head. “Maybe there’s hope,” he whispers.

#xf fanfic #i wrote this #emily au

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